Verstappen lets USGP stewards do the talking after latest Norris fight

Max Verstappen decided to let the United States Grand Prix stewards do the talking for him following another titanic tussle with F1 title rival Lando Norris.

The McLaren driver had reeled in the Red Bull driver with fresher hard tyres, and by lap 52 of 56 they were going wheel to wheel at the Circuit of the Americas.

Into Turn 12, Verstappen forced Norris ride, who completed an overtake off the track, albeit with the Dutchman also going beyond the limits of circuit in defending.

Following discussions over the radio with both drivers and their race engineers, the stewards ultimately decided to hand Norris a five-second penalty.

In taking the chequered flag third behind a Ferrari one-two, Norris was only 4.1s clear of Verstappen and so dropped behind him to fourth in the race result.

Asked about the manoeuvre after the race, Verstappen said: "I have my opinion. I don't need to say it here. I'll let the stewards do their thing. For us, it was a race where we learned a lot and we will just analyse that."

Verstappen described his race overall as "difficult", in stark contrast to the comfort of his sprint win a day before.

"I never had the pace to attack, so a bit different compared to yesterday, just understeering a lot, struggling under braking," he said.

"That also made the defending quite difficult because every time someone wanted to go for a move I couldn't brake that late.

"It was a tough battle. I tried everything I could, of course, to keep him [Norris] behind. At the end, to be on the podium is still a great result for us."