Prix

Hamilton also faces an investigation for failing to slow sufficiently for the yellow flags waved when Leclerc lost control.

Norris topped all three sessions in sprint qualifying and had a comfortable advantage over Piastri throughout.

He said: “It was a little bit tougher than I would have liked. But we did the job we needed to do, which was to be fastest today.

“Qualifying is always one of the best things here. It’s difficulty, it’s bumpy, it’s tricky, always a joy, always puts a smile on your face.

“But a long weekend, another qualifying and another couple of races to go but a good start.”

Rain is forecast for Saturday morning in Sao Paulo, when the sprint race is due to start at 14:00 GMT. Qualifying for the grand prix is at 18:00.

Norris’ result is the best possible start to the weekend and gives him the opportunity to build his championship lead – eight points are awarded to the winner of the sprint, seven for second and so on down to eighth place.

Antonelli impressed in second, his best time set on his first lap, while the surprise package of qualifying was Alonso, who set the fastest time in the second session and was just 0.253secs off pole in his midfield car in the final shootout.

His team-mate Lance Stroll was seventh fastest, ahead of Leclerc, Racing Bulls’ Iscak Hadjar and Sauber’s Nico Hulkenberg.

He added: “It’s something that definitely needs to be tackled. But that’s probably something that needs to be done in the background, I would imagine.”

Hamilton made an oblique reference to the 2021 championship decider in Abu Dhabi, where he controversially lost out on the title to Verstappen as a result of former race director Michael Masi failing to apply the rules correctly during a late-race safety car period.

At the time, race stewards declined to overturn Masi’s decisions. The Australian was later fired by governing body the FIA, before a report into the incident concluded that Masi’s decisions were the result of “human error”.

Speaking before this weekend’s Sao Paulo Grand Prix, Hamilton said: “I don’t know if they’re aware of the weight of their decisions. They ultimately steer careers. Can decide results of championships, as you’ve seen in the past. Some work needs to be done there, I’m sure.”

The FIA does not comment on stewards’ decisions as they are meant to operate independently from the governing body.

SUPERSTAR DJ David Guetta has been announced as the first headliner for the 2026 Formula 1 British Grand Prix at Silverstone.

The Titanium hitmaker, 57, will join star-studded music line-up at the event, that features a variety of artists across multiple stages.

The performance will mark Guetta’s only UK appearance of his global MONOLITH tour next summer.

Having attracted record crowds of 500,000 last summer, the home of British motorsport is set to go bigger and better, with a line-up of international musicians.

The announcement sees Guetta join a stellar list of past British Grand Prix headliners that includes Stormzy, RAYE, Sam Fender, Fatboy Slim and Becky Hill.

Ahead of the big performance, David Guetta said: “I’ve played some incredible shows around the world, but performing at Silverstone during the British Grand Prix is going to be something truly special.

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“I’ve always been drawn to Formula 1 – the atmosphere, the adrenaline, the passion – it’s everything I love.

“I even made a music video inspired by F1 years ago.

“I can’t wait to bring my energy to the main stage and make it an unforgettable night.”

The BRIT and Grammy-winning icon will open the four-day celebration on Thursday 2 July, delivering his world-famous high-energy set packed with global hits.

Guetta’s Silverstone debut promises to kickstart the Grand Prix weekend
with an unforgettable party and marks a fitting full-circle moment for the French DJ, whose 2014 Dangerous music video paid tribute to Formula 1, featuring F1 legend Romain Grosjean.

More headliners and entertainment acts will be announced in the coming months, alongside
on-track programming and fan experiences.

Tickets for the 2026 British Grand Prix are now available online.

Formula 1 driver Liam Lawson said he narrowly avoided a fatal accident during Sunday’s Mexico City Grand Prix after two marshals ran across the track in front of him.

The incident happened in the third lap when marshals were seen on the circuit as Lawson rejoined the race after an early pitstop to replace a front wing.

Shortly afterwards, Racing Bulls driver Lawson said on team radio to his race engineer: “Are you kidding me? Did you just see that? I could have… killed them.”

After the race, he added: “I honestly couldn’t believe what I was seeing.

“[I] came out on a new set of hards [tyres], and then I got to Turn One and there were just two dudes running across the track.

“I nearly hit one of them, honestly, it was so dangerous.

“Obviously there’s been a miscommunication somewhere but I’ve never experienced that before, and I haven’t really seen that in the past. It’s pretty unacceptable.

“We can’t understand how on a live track marshals can be allowed to just run across the track like that. I have no idea why, I’m sure we’ll get some sort of explanation, but it really can’t happen again.”

Formula 1’s governing body, the International Automobile Federation (FIA), is investigating the circumstances.

“Following a turn one incident, race control was informed that debris was present on the track at the apex of that corner,” said the FIA.

“On lap three, marshals were alerted and placed on standby to enter the track and recover the debris once all cars had passed.

“As soon as it became apparent that Lawson had pitted, the instructions to dispatch marshals were rescinded and a double yellow flag was shown in that area.

“We are still investigating what occurred after that point.”

Norris admitted after the race in Mexico that there had been times earlier this year when he “certainly did” doubt himself.

“When the car was winning and Oscar was winning,” he said, “the last thing I could do was use the excuse that my car wasn’t good enough.

“I wasn’t getting to grips and finding a way to make it work and I’m finding a better way to make it work now, so it’s as simple as that.”

It is now Piastri facing that feeling, after two difficult weekends during which he has been a fair bit off the pace.

“For some reason, the last couple of weekends has required a very different way of driving,” said Piastri.

“What’s worked well for me in the last 19 races, I’ve needed something very different the last couple of weekends. Trying to wrap my head around why has been a bit of a struggle.”

After qualifying 0.588 seconds and seven places behind Norris in Mexico, Piastri spent Saturday night deep in the data with his engineers, trying to come up with some answers.

The race was about trying to apply them – even if he was not able to get a definitive answer as to whether they had worked, given he spent most of it stuck behind other cars on his way to a fifth place that will have felt painful, but in reality amounted to a solid recovery and exercise in damage limitation.

“Ultimately today was about trying to experiment with some of those things,” continued Piastri. “Because driving the way I’ve had to drive these last couple of weekends is not particularly natural for me.

Team boss Andrea Stella had an explanation for Piastri’s struggles.

He said that Norris excels in low-grip conditions, whereas Piastri’s driving style tends more towards high-grip levels, and he pointed out that, in only his third season, Piastri still has things to learn about adapting to different conditions.

“In the final four races, no reason to think that one may favour one driver or the other,” said Stella, pointing to Las Vegas as the most problematic potentially for the team.

“For Lando and Oscar, there’s no problem in terms of track layout coming in the next four races. If anything, we need to make sure that from a McLaren point of view, we are in condition to extract the full performance that is available in the car, like we have been able to do here in Mexico.

“The confidence in terms of the championship is increased. It’s increased because we have proven that we have a car that can win races and in some conditions can dominate races. This is the most important factor to put Lando and Oscar in condition to pursue the drivers’ championship.”

Lewis Hamilton hailed his best qualifying result at Ferrari for Sunday’s Mexico City Grand Prix as a “huge step” after what he described as a “hard slog” of a season so far with the team.

The seven-time world champion will start third after an impressive display from Ferrari, with team-mate Charles Leclerc finishing second fastest behind Lando Norris, who secured pole position.

Hamilton has endured a difficult time since joining from Mercedes last winter – and has yet to win a race for the team.

He faces a tough task in changing that statistic this weekend with Norris looking imperious, although three of the past five races in Mexico have been won from third.

But Hamilton is just happy to see things improving for the team.

“Definitely happy to be making progress and finally be up there,” he said.

“Charles has been used to these results, or at least being close to the front most of the year, but for me it has been a hard slog, being like sixth, seventh or eighth – mostly eighth.

“So to get P3 is a huge step for us and I am really grateful for the efforts of the team and the amazing support I’ve had from the team.”

This is also the first time this season that both Ferraris have qualified in the top three and Hamilton added: “These guys have been so quick all year and it’s an amazing feeling.

“The team truly deserve it, so we are just working as hard as we can and I’m super grateful to everyone in this team for continuing to push and not give up.”

Piastri, meanwhile, cut a somewhat forlorn figure. He had a difficult weekend in the US a week ago and thought he had found the answers. But as he put it: “What’s been a bit surprising here has just been that the gap has been the same pretty much every session.

“I feel like I’ve done some decent laps through the weekend, but everything seems to be about 0.4-0.5secs off.”

Team principal Andrea Stella said Piastri was losing a little bit everywhere, and Piastri said: “I feel like I did a reasonable job and the car felt reasonable as well. So, yeah, the lack of lap time is a bit of a mystery.”

Piastri has been off Norris’ pace whether on short runs or long, low fuel or high, so it is more in hope that he said of the race: “If I can unlock the pace in the car, we can have some fun. We’ve just got to try to unlock it.”

This is now Piastri’s fifth difficult weekend in a row, his form mysteriously evaporating since he won in the Netherlands at the end of August.

He did not talk directly about what this means for the championship, but there was no hiding the meaning behind one of his comments: “There’s a lot of things I could worry about, but ultimately being that far off when you feel like you’ve done a reasonable job is a difficult place to be. And so that’s my biggest concern at the moment.”

Stella said that the conditions in Mexico, like those in Austin, are ones in which Norris thrives and Piastri is less comfortable – low grip, hot tyres.

And he said that “every evidence, every piece of data, every indirect measurement of information we have, tells us that there is no problem with the car”.

He added that it was “good” for McLaren to be able “to confirm that we can have the fastest car”, adding that their “focus is to stop the momentum of Verstappen”.

Lando Norris said McLaren were “already a little bit behind” after Friday practice at the Mexico City Grand Prix.

Norris and team-mate Oscar Piastri are under pressure from Red Bull’s Max Verstappen after a strong run of races for the Dutchman – and the four-time champion topped Friday practice at the Autodromo Hermanos Rodriguez.

Verstappen, 40 points off championship leader Piastri after a run of three wins and a second place in the past four races, set the pace, leading Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc by 0.153 seconds.

Norris was fourth fastest, while Piastri, 14 points ahead of the Briton, was down in 12th.

Norris, one of nine drivers to miss the first session while handing his car over to a rookie, said: “We’re in a reasonable place, for sure.

“I got up to speed quite quickly, I was quite surprised. I found the limit quickly… but I found the limit quite quickly, which is just holding us back a bit.

“Not that it was a bad day, but normally we’re very good on a Friday and then everyone catches up on Saturday.

“We are already a little bit behind so we have definitely some work to do tonight. The balance is a bit all over the place, same as the last few weeks. Single-lap stuff we’re struggling a bit at the minute.”

However, although Verstappen was quickest overall, he was also dissatisfied with his day, saying he was struggling for pace on the race-simulation runs later in the session.

“The short run on the soft (tyre) we managed to do a good lap,” said Verstappen, who has a new floor fitted to his Red Bull as the team chase every last bit of performance. “The rest, everything else was pretty bad.

“On the medium [tyre], the short run was not great and the big problem was the long run, where we seemed to struggle a lot. That is a big concern for the race.

“The balance wasn’t even off. There was just no grip. That is the bigger concern. So, as soon as you go into a sustainable run, the tyres are going hot, we were nowhere, so that is a tough one to sort out, but we’ll see.”

When it was pointed out to him that his consolation was that single-lap pace should put him in a good position for qualifying, Verstappen shot back: “Yeah, but you are not going to win the race like that.

“You can be fast over one lap and if you have zero pace in the race then it is going to be very tough. I prefer to be fast in the race and not so fast over one lap.”

The McLaren drivers go into the final five races free to race with each other and with no internal team rules hanging over them – other than not to crash with one another.

Norris had been facing undefined “repercussions” after colliding with Piastri while taking third place from him at the first sequence of corners in Singapore.

Following the crash between the two at the start of the sprint at the US Grand Prix last weekend, these have now been removed.

“There is a degree of responsibility from my side in the sprint and we are starting this weekend within a clean slate for both of us, just going out and going racing,” said Piastri.

The Australian, who won at Zandvoort, has seen his lead erode after being beaten by Norris in each of the past four races, but he said he had also been surprised Verstappen had come into the equation so quicky.

“The run of form he’s had since Monza has been a bit of a surprise,” said Piastri.

“There were flashes earlier in the season but there were also some pretty big dips. We know they have been throwing a lot of things at their car trying to improve it but he has come to the fight quicker than I expected.”

However, when asked if he was concerned about Verstappen, Piastri said: “It’s not really something I think about. He has been consistent and strong the last few weekends but there is no benefit in worrying about or focusing on that.

“The thing that’s going to help me win the championship is get the most out of myself, the car, the team. He’s there, he’s in the fight but ultimately it doesn’t change how I go about my racing.”

Norris added: “Max has had very good form the last month or so. They have been performing better than we have.

“He has won a good amount of races and he’s Max Verstappen. You’d be silly if you didn’t want to give Max a chance.

“At the minute, they are in better form, a lot of races they have been quicker. But we still have chances. We have a better car from now until the end of the season and we just have to make use of that.”

Verstappen said: “It’s clear we had a good run, definitely been enjoying it a lot more like that and we will try to carry that momentum forward. We know we need to be perfect to the end to have a chance, but we just try to maximise everything and see where we end up.”

Verstappen’s wire-to-wire victory in Austin narrows the drivers’ championship gap to 40 points behind Oscar Piastri, with six races remaining.

Red Bull’s Max Verstappen dominated the US Grand Prix from pole position on Sunday, leading every lap to take another significant chunk out of Oscar Piastri’s Formula One championship lead on a perfect weekend in Texas.

McLaren’s Piastri finished fifth with his teammate and closest rival, Lando Norris, seconds after passing Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc, last year’s winner, five laps from the chequered flag.

Piastri now leads Britain’s Norris by 14 points, with five rounds and two sprints remaining, while Verstappen has slashed his gap to the Australian to 40 after being 104 behind at the end of August.

Verstappen also won the Saturday sprint from pole position at Austin’s Circuit of the Americas, while the McLarens collided and retired, on a weekend of maximum points for the four-time world champion.

McLaren has already sealed the constructors’ title.

Verstappen says the title chance is there

“For sure, the chance is there,” Verstappen said of the title battle. “We just need to try and deliver these weekends until the end.

“We will try whatever we can. It’s exciting,” he added after his third win in the last four races and 68th of his career.

Piastri said he still had full confidence in his ability to become Australia’s first champion since Alan Jones in 1980.

“I’d still rather be where I am than the other two,” added the 24-year-old.

Norris lost out to Leclerc at the start and then took 21 laps to find a way back past as the Monegasque, on the faster but less durable soft tyres, held a defensive masterclass.

Leclerc then battled with Lewis Hamilton, who started on mediums, before pitting on lap 23 and coming back out in ninth place, with his teammate moving up to third and Piastri to fourth.

Verstappen, by then, was 10 seconds down the road from his closest rival.

Once the rest of the frontrunners had made their pitstops, Leclerc was again second on the road – but more than six seconds behind Verstappen – with Norris third and having to overtake all over again with a track limits warning hanging over him.

Job done, Norris pulled away and finished 7.9 seconds behind Verstappen and 7.4 ahead of the Ferrari.

“It was tough. We did everything we could,” he said of a battle that gave the fans some excitement as Verstappen completed lap after lap largely absent from the global television feed.

“I expected a slightly easier second attempt to get through, but it wasn’t the case. Charles drove a very good race. It was good fun, good battles. So we have to take second. Not a lot more we could’ve done today.”

McLaren team boss Andrea Stella said, however, that Norris could have fought for the win had he not been held up by the Ferrari.

Hamilton was fourth, with Piastri just 1.1 seconds behind, and George Russell – the winner last time out in Singapore – taking the chequered flag in sixth for Mercedes.

Red Bull’s Yuki Tsunoda finished seventh, ahead of Sauber’s Nico Hulkenberg and Haas’s Oliver Bearman. Fernando Alonso took the final point for Aston Martin.

The virtual safety car was deployed on lap seven when Mercedes’ Italian rookie Kimi Antonelli and Williams’ Carlos Sainz collided, with the Spaniard retiring after trying to overtake on the inside for seventh place.

Stewards handed Sainz a five-place grid penalty at next weekend’s Mexican Grand Prix, plus two penalty points, for causing the collision.

Sainz’s teammate Alex Albon had also been caught up in a first corner collision with Sauber’s Brazilian rookie Gabriel Bortoleto.

The weekend was declared a heat hazard, although the air temperature during the race was lower than feared at about 28.6 degrees Celsius (83.5 Fahrenheit).

The statistics of the last four races over the past month and a half are quite remarkable.

After the Dutch Grand Prix, Verstappen was 104 points behind McLaren’s Oscar Piastri in the championship, and 70 adrift of Lando Norris. Now, he is 40 points behind the Australian, whose lead over his team-mate has been cut to just 14 points.

Verstappen expressed his own incredulity at what he had achieved. If someone had told him after Zandvoort this would happen, he said, “I would have told him he was an idiot.

“But we found a good way with the car. It’s simple as that. Of course, we put some upgrades on the car, but we just understood our car a bit better, where we wanted it to perform better.”

A 64-point gain in four races tells its own story, but how it has come about is just as remarkable.

McLaren trounced Red Bull through the summer races in Europe – until the Italian Grand Prix in early September, when an upgraded floor and front wing finally gave Verstappen the balance he had been craving all year.

Since then, the Red Bull has been the fastest car. Until this weekend in Austin, that could have been explained away through circuit characteristics – Monza, Baku and Singapore are all short, slow corners, and require good braking and traction.

The McLaren’s strengths are not in this area – they are in long-duration, medium-speed corners, where they crush everyone else.

But Austin is a “normal” circuit, a road course not a street circuit, not a high-speed outlier like Monza, with a good range of corners. And Verstappen won again.

There are five races left, two of them sprint events. If he keeps closing on the McLaren drivers at the rate he has been, he will win a fifth consecutive title, it’s as stark and simple as that.

Norris started alongside Verstappen on the front row, hoping McLaren’s usually strong race performance would allow him to challenge the Red Bull driver, who had won two of the past three races and beaten the McLarens in all of them.

But Norris’ hopes of the win evaporated quickly as Leclerc used the extra grip of the soft tyres – he was the only driver in the top 10 to pick them for the start, with everyone else on mediums – to catapult into second place at the first corner.

As Verstappen built his lead, through an early virtual safety car period caused by a collision between Williams’ Carlos Sainz and Mercedes’ Kimi Antonelli, Norris tried in vain to pass Leclerc, with Hamilton in close attendance.

Several times Norris challenged Leclerc on the outside at Turn 12, at the end of the long back straight, but he was never close enough to really try for a pass.

As Verstappen built his lead, Leclerc held on until just before he stopped for fresh tyres on lap 22, fitting the medium compound.

Verstappen stopped a couple of laps later, never losing the lead and enjoying an untroubled win, his third in four races and fifth of the season, matching Norris’ tally.

Norris stayed out for a further 10 laps, dropping behind the Ferrari again when he stopped to fit the soft tyres.

The Briton emerged 2.4 seconds behind Leclerc and within four laps was on the Ferrari’s tail.

But again he could not pass and soon he was on the radio saying his tyres we’re gone.

Norris was advised by his race engineer Will Joseph to back off for a few laps to cool his tyres and try again.

Norris did so, and closed in with five laps to go. He challenged into Turn One, briefly getting past, only for Leclerc to cut back and reclaim the place.

But half a lap later, Norris went for the position again into Turn 12, dummying Leclerc and this time making the move stick.

By this stage, Hamilton had dropped back and took a lonely fourth place.

The crash and Verstappen’s subsequent sprint win cut the four-time champion’s deficit to Piastri to 55 points, while he is now 33 behind Norris.

The Australian led Verstappen by 104 points after the Dutch race on 31 August, so nearly half that advantage has been eroded in three grands prix and a sprint. There are still six races and two further sprints to come.

In the normal run of things, it seems inevitable that Piastri will lose more ground to Verstappen on Sunday in Texas. Norris has a chance to get ahead, but as he pointed out, the McLaren has not looked like a Verstappen-beating car at any point this weekend.

“It’s going to be difficult,” Norris said. “We were hoping to learn a lot in the sprint in terms of how the car set-up would be from qualifying to race and hopefully make tweaks but that didn’t go to plan so we are certainly on the back foot. But we won’t make it an excuse for tomorrow.

“It’s clear we were not going to be as quick as the Red Bull so we have to be happy with second. It’s not being distracted by the mess and nonsense that everyone creates.

“Saturdays have never been as good this year so I’m hoping we can turn it up tomorrow and be a little bit quicker.

“I have to be optimistic. Every lap we did today was 0.3-0.5secs off Max so to turn that around will be pretty difficult. I’m sure if Max had done his final lap he would have gone a good step quicker anyway.

“They have been quick in a lot of races recently. They have been doing a very good job and seemed to catch us up a little bit. It’s not a lot, just enough that they are more consistently ahead. And then you can get more opportunities and of course Max is good at making the most of them.”

Meanwhile, Stella admitted that McLaren were even more aware of just how potent Verstappen can be for the remainder of the season.

“I would have expected a smaller gap here, if anything, so we have to look at the facts, we have to look at the numbers,” he said. “Just objectively, not necessarily we maximised what the performance was available today in the car.

“But we need to be ready as a team and as drivers for Max and Red Bull being competitive and possibly the fastest car at every one of the remaining races.”

Red Bull’s Max Verstappen beat McLaren’s Lando Norris to pole position at the United States Grand Prix with championship leader Oscar Piastri down in sixth.

After the McLaren drivers crashed out of the sprint earlier on Saturday, neither was able to challenge Verstappen even though the world champion failed to complete a final run in qualifying.

Verstappen was sent out too late to get around in time to start a last lap before the chequered flag but still beat Norris by 0.291 seconds.

It was an imperious performance that underlined why McLaren are concerned about his threat in the drivers’ championship.

Norris saved his best for last in a difficult session to pip Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc to second on the grid by just 0.006secs.

But Piastri, who has looked out of sorts all weekend, was not quick and he ended up 0.574secs off the pace, and behind Mercedes’ George Russell and the second Ferrari of Lewis Hamilton.

The crash was a gift for Verstappen, who McLaren have always insisted remained a threat in the championship despite his significant deficit, especially as Red Bull have returned to form in recent races.

The crash brought out the safety car for five laps and after the restart Verstappen was tracked by Russell, who made a bold move into Turn 12 on lap seven, a late dive that ended up with both going off the track.

Verstappen retained the position and soon began to edge away and took control of the race.

Sainz was no threat to Russell, but he had to watch his mirrors for Hamilton.

The seven-time champion passed team-mate Charles Leclerc on lap eight down the back straight after the Monegasque lost control of his car through the high-speed Esses earlier in the lap.

Leclerc had a snap through the Esses, cut one of the corners, and that allowed Hamilton to close up. He then passed down the straight as Leclerc edged him right to the edge of the track on the inside.

Leclerc tried to fight back through the series of slower corners through the stadium section but Hamilton held on.

Leclerc took fifth place, with Williams’ Alex Albon sixth and Red Bull’s Yuki Tsunoda seventh.

Mercedes’ Kimi Antonelli took the final point after a 10-second penalty for Haas driver Oliver Bearman, who was adjudged to have gained an advantage by leaving the track after the Italian tried a passing move into Turn 12 late in the race.

Bearman could not believe the penalty when told about it by his team during the race, obviously feeling Antonelli had forced him off track with his late move.

The race ended under another safety car after Aston Martin’s Lance Stroll T-boned Esteban Ocon’s Haas into the first corner, leaving his team with a massive repair job on both cars in the gap before grand prix qualifying at 22:00 BST.

Piastri had looked to be struggling compared with Norris since the start of practice and was a good chunk off the Briton in all three qualifying sessions.

Norris said: “Disappointed not to be on pole but not a surprise for us to be just a bit slower than the Red Bull lately.

“A little couple of bits here and there I could have improved on and caught a few bumps a little bit wrong, that’s the difficulty of this track. Otherwise, all happy.”

Piastri said: “A pretty scruffy lap. Just didn’t really get it together. In some ways, I feel a bit fortunate to be third. The pace in the car is good. It’s nothing major, just been a bit of a messy lap and hopefully I can tidy it up tomorrow.”

The sprint offers eight points for the winner down to one for eighth place.

The stand-out performance in qualifying came from Hulkenberg, the first time he has qualified in the top 10 all year, and the best Sauber performance of the season.

Their previous top grid position was seventh for team-mate Gabriel Bortoleto in Hungary at the start of August.

“Satisfied, happy, as you might imagine,” the German said. “P1 looked too good to be true. We weren’t sure if it was the real deal but we were able to continue that trend. Hopefully we can hang on to it this weekend.

“The pace was just there. The car seemed to be fast and in a good window, hit the sweet spot, I think that’s all.”

McLaren’s Lando Norris set the pace in practice at the United States Grand Prix, split from team-mate and title rival Oscar Piastri by Sauber’s Nico Hulkenberg.

Norris, trailing the Australian by 22 points with six races to go, headed Piastri by 0.279 seconds at the start of a sprint weekend at the Circuit of the Americas.

Aston Martin’s Fernando Alonso was fourth fastest, ahead of Red Bull’s Max Verstappen and Williams’ Alex Albon.

This was the only session before sprint qualifying at 22:30 BST.

Mercedes’ George Russell was seventh fastest, the first driver to set his fastest time on the medium tyres, ahead of Ferrari’s Lewis Hamilton, Racing Bulls’ Isack Hadjar and Haas’ Oliver Bearman.

Red Bull’s Max Verstappen, who is 63 points behind Piastri in the championship but has won two of the past three races and finished second in the other, was asked in a news conference on Thursday in Austin whether he believed McLaren were favouring Norris.

He replied: “Absolutely.”

He laughed, and then said: “Yep.”

Leaving the news conference, he said off-microphone: “Well, there’s a headline.”

BBC Sport sought clarification from Verstappen as to whether he had been joking, and he said through a PR person that he had been.

In answer to the same favouritism question, Verstappen added: “I honestly don’t know. I don’t care also. It has nothing to do with me. They do whatever they think is right and they are doing a very good job of it being so quick.

“For me, the most important thing is we maximise our potential and as long as we do that, it is in our control.”

Piastri said: “I’m very happy that there’s no favouritism or bias.”

The seven-time champion is a supporter of Vasseur, who was instrumental in signing him.

Speaking during the drivers’ news conference before this weekend’s United States Grand Prix, Hamilton said: “It is a little bit distracting for us as a team. The team have made it clear where they stand in terms of re-signing Fred.

“Fred and the whole team are working really hard on a future for the team.”

Vasseur’s contract was due to expire at the end of this season, but it was renewed just two and a half months ago.

Ferrari tend not to comment on stories about the future of the team, considering it media speculation.

But when reports linking Horner to the team first emerged in the summer, Ferrari used channels to communicate to the media that there was no truth in the claim. The company’s position has not changed since.

For this season, the cooling vests are optional, and some drivers, such as four-time world champion Max Verstappen, do not like them because they consider them uncomfortable and flawed.

Williams driver Alex Albon said it was a “polarising subject”, between “the old-school and new-school mentality”, but that the cooling vest was “a good thing”.

Referencing the Singapore Grand Prix on 5 October, he added: “As a team we’ve done a really good job with the cooling system. It works well on our car, it’s comfortable. The first 20 laps of the race I was actually cold rather than hot, which was definitely a new thing for me.

“In a weird way I think we see it as an advantage as a team because if we’ve got drivers that are fresher at the end of the race then surely that’s performance.”

But Albon said he did not know whether the system would be necessary in Austin this weekend.

“Humidity is always a struggling factor,” Albon said. “Getting your skin to breathe with all the fireproofs that we have on our car and all these kind of things.

“When it’s dry heat, and this doesn’t feel that humid out there at the moment, it’s relatively comfortable for us.”

Mercedes driver George Russell wore the vest when he won in Singapore in hot and humid conditions on 5 October.

If the driver chooses not to wear the vest, his car must carry 500 grams of ballast to compensate for the weight of the system so he does not gain a competitive advantage.

The system, which teams can make to their individual designs, typically features a liquid such as glycol pumped through a tank of dry ice and through the driver’s fireproof top.

Issues with the system include the dry ice running out. This leads to liquid at car temperature, which is hotter than ambient temperature, being pumped through the system.