THE BIG PICTURE: Barring an unforseen DNF, Max Verstappen and Red Bull's improvement may have put a dagger in Lando Norris's title hopes. In fact, Norris needs to look behind him, because Leclerc is gaining, closer than Norris is to Verstappen.

EVENT: Remember when Europeans said F1 would never work in America? How many European events can top Austin's weekend attendance? And that's just one of three races in the USA.

TRACK: New pavement mostly got rid of the bumps, caused traction issues, and played havoc with tire strategy.

SPRINT SHOOTOUT: Verstappen gets the upgrades to work, four different manufacturers in the first two rows, both Haas cars, Tsunoda, and Colapinto impress in the top 10, Perez doinks it in SQ2, and Piastri suffers track limits in SQ1.

SPRINT: Position swapping back and forth between the two Ferraris was great entertainment for us but not Fred Vasseur. Verstappen wins his first race since June. A phenomenal stat when one thinks about it.

SPRINT START: Verstappen has it easy with no pressure, Norris gets a great start and a great move to go from fourth to second, and an Aston Martin takes to the grass.

QUALIFYING: Russell ruins a great developing duel between Norris and Verstappen, but Norris doesn't mind, while Verstappen is philosophical, Ferrari grabs the second row, Perez as usual is back in 10th, Gasly is the shocker in Q3 while Hamilton is the shocker out in Q1, and the Haas drivers reverse the script.

RACE: Poor Ferrari. Poor Leclerc. A fabulous performance by them, and nobody was watching. Even the cameras weren't tuned on them, following the epic battle between Verstappen and Norris.

START: Norris gets the start he needs, moves over to block Verstappen, but lo and behold Max forces his way down the inside. Meanwhile, Leclerc anticipated just this, taking a normal line and cruising on by from fourth to first and ultimately the win, thank you very much.

LECLERC: A masterful race by Charles, switching his strategy on the fly.

SAINZ: Even more overlooked in this race than his teammate, but Carlos also deserves massive kudos.

FERRARI: Of all the crazy things which have changed from the beginning of the season, who would have ever guessed Ferrari would be fantastic on tire wear and their strategy would be spot on.

VERSTAPPEN: Say what you want, but Max is the most difficult driver to get around when he doesn't want you to. Sometimes, not so fairly.

PEREZ: Just keeps pissing points away for his team.

RED BULL: Not only are they not going to win the constructors' title, they may not even take second thanks to just having 1-1/2 drivers. They are only eight points ahead of a fast arriving Ferrari.

NORRIS: Lando just doesn't seem to be as able, or willing, to be as aggressive as other drivers. Not just compared to Verstappen, but even compared to his own teammate (see Monza).

PIASTRI: Didn't really have it this weekend. Which is going to relegate Oscar to wingman for the rest of the season.

MCLAREN: Ultimately, they should have told Norris to immediately give the position back. Especially since Norris still had an excellent chance of making the pass again, legally. This is yet another example of McLaren not getting the little things right in the heat of a championship battle.

HAAS: This time the upgrades worked at the USGP. Big time. And they have now passed RB for sixth place.

LAWSON: Went from a last row start to a points finish and beat Tsunoda. Did we ever see Ricciardo do that?

RICCIARDO: In the end, it doesn't matter what money you bring, what nationality you are, how effervescent you are for the sponsors. Eventually, it comes down to performance in F1. And quite frankly, Daniel didn't have that after leaving Red Bull all those years ago.

COLAPINTO: Franco is making Logan Sargeant look worse and worse. And putting a lot of pressure on Albon.

GASLY: The car's improvement didn't completely pan out for the race.

HAMILTON: If Lewis was starting from the back anyway, why didn't someone on the team make the call to change the setup and start from pit lane? How much worse could it be? Certainly better than winding up in the gravel trap on the second lap.

RUSSELL: George did just that -- made changes, stated from pit lane. And what do you know, he finished sixth.

ALPINE: You can't go fast, so you paint your car to look like McLaren?

SAUBER: Still zero points. Heck, Liam Lawson scored points in his debut race this year while this two-car team has zippo the entire season.

FIA: Sure, the Stewards are inconsistent with how they apply the "forcing a driver off" and "passing off track" rules. But the real problem is the rules themselves. It's so frustrating.

WORD OF THE WEEKEND: Bib.

STAT OF THE WEEKEND: 5 -- As in penalty seconds.

HISTORICAL STAT OF THE WEEKEND: This was the first Ferrari one-two finish in the USGP since 2006 when Michael Schumacher won followed by Felipe Massa (Giancarlo Fisichella took third in a Renault) at Indianapolis. This was the year after the Michelin tire debacle where only six cars started and finished. But ironically, 2006 only saw nine cars finish. Seven cars were eliminated in two separate crashes by turn one after the start. By lap nine, three more cars crashed out. After that, mechanical woes felled another three cars.

TWEET OF THE WEEKEND: @BradleyPhilpot on the controversy of the race:

It's one thing having awful overtaking rules - but another thing to not even apply those terrible rules consistently. #F1

QUOTE OF THE WEEKEND: Oscar Piastri on what should be done with the rules application inconsistency, "Maybe we should adopt NASCAR rules and sort it out on track or in the pits, but ... well actually no. Some people have tried that and got community service."

QUOTE OF THE WEEKEND RUNNERUP: Carlos Sainz on COTA, "This is a great track for racing."

SCHEDULE: Off to Mexico. This year will be very, very interesting with all that is going on around Sergio Perez.

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