Lando Norris was pleading from the McLaren cockpit for a race-neutralising intervention that never came.

The one-stop plan had lifted him from eighth on the grid to second, but it only paid out if someone else gave him a window. On ageing hard tyres, he was overhauled by Max Verstappen and Charles Leclerc together at Turn 1, with Lewis Hamilton following them past moments later.

“If there was any VSC or a safety car, we were right in contention for a good podium, even P2 for a lot of it, so we were hoping, I was praying, but it never came,” Norris told Motorsportweek.

A virtual safety car did come. It was deployed only when Valtteri Bottas’s Cadillac broke down with five laps remaining, long after the two-stoppers had cleared him.

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McLaren’s calculated bet

Starting eighth, Norris had no realistic route to the podium through orthodox strategy. Nursing one set of hards for the full race was the only way to put himself near the front if the field was ever neutralised.

“We tried, and we were not there on pace or anything, so we had to give it a shot,” Norris told Motorsportweek.

Team principal Andrea Stella defended the call afterwards.

“For the one-stop, this gives you the possibility to take advantage of a Safety Car, which didn’t come,” Stella told Formula1.com.

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The Italian added that the car itself had been close to the Ferraris and Red Bull on pace in Austin, and that keeping Verstappen and Leclerc behind on worn hards was always going to be a stretch.

Antonelli closes in on the title

Kimi Antonelli won from pole for Mercedes, with Charles Leclerc second and Max Verstappen third. The Italian moved 123 points clear of team-mate George Russell at the top of the drivers’ standings, with 125 still available across the final five rounds.

Norris is sixth on 211 points, 154 behind Antonelli. McLaren are fourth in the constructors’ championship, level on 355 points with Red Bull in a straight fight for third.

Formula 1 reconvenes at the Autódromo Hermanos Rodríguez for the Mexico City Grand Prix on Sunday 1 November, with lights out at 2pm local time.

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