the 2025 austin sprint: chaos, chaos and more chaos
both mclarens out at turn 1, stroll torpedoes ocon, and max verstappen takes a free 8 points off the pair of them.
the 2025 austin sprint was chaotic (to say the least). honestly, it’s probably the most chaos we’ve had since australia. i unfortunately missed it because i was at the 6 kings slam watching jannik sinner play carlos alcaraz, but after watching the highlights and browsing through r/formula1, i think i get the gist of what happened.
first lap, turn 1, and we got a small “inchident”. oscar piastri tried to cut back underneath lando norris, found nico hulkenberg’s sauber already on the inside, and got punted straight into his own teammate. both mclarens were out on the spot. hulkenberg lost his front wing, pitted and carried on to finish P13.
to top it off, fernando alonso, who’s been at the short end of luck the entire season, was caught in the crossfire and had to retire with damage after starting P6. he didn’t call himself the “unluckiest driver in the f###ing world” at imola without reason.
then, on lap 8, george russell, like a true mercedes mercenary, pulled a risky dive-bomb on max verstappen into turn 12. both of them ran off the track, in a manner similar to the 2024 norris/verstappen mexico incident, and max rejoined still in the lead. the stewards didn’t even bother investigating.
with a few laps left, lance stroll attempted his own dive-bomb on esteban ocon into turn 1, locked up, and took both of them out of the race. the sprint finished behind the safety car, and stroll was handed a five-place grid penalty for the grand prix. he did apologize to ocon, so he finally took some accountability, but is anyone surprised to see lance crashing into another driver entirely on his own?
the result is that max won from pole and gained a free 8 points on both norris and piastri, which puts him 55 behind oscar. halfway through the season, we knew one of the mclaren drivers would win the WDC and joked about verstappen getting his fifth. now? it’s expected that verstappen, on talent alone, can beat the two faster mclarens. a double DNF right after winning the constructors’ championship isn’t the most ideal celebration mclaren could’ve had.
crofty himself put it best on friday, when max took sprint pole: “i keep getting reminded of that scene in jurassic park, two people sat in a jeep, trying to escape the dinosaurs, and there’s a t. rex charging after them. and there’s your t. rex, ladies and gentlemen, and lando and oscar are in the jeep.”
the numbers back the t. rex up. this was verstappen’s 13th sprint win out of the 22 sprints ever held, which means he has more than every other driver combined. has this sprint spiced up the championship? obviously. will we go crazy if both mclarens crash again in the race? yes.
see you in the race summary.