MEXICO CITY (AP) — Lando Norris snapped a five-race losing streak Sunday and passed McLaren teammate Oscar Piastri in the fight for the Formula 1 championship by winning at Mexico City.
Piastri came from seventh and used a late pass of George Russell to finish fifth — a critical gain as it allowed Norris to take just a one-point lead over Piastri in the championship race.
The sixth victory of the season for Norris was his first time back on top of the podium since winning the Hungarian Grand Prix at the start of August. More important, Norris pounced on the recent slump Piastri has fallen into to tighten the teammates' bid to dethrone Max Verstappen as world champion.
Norris, who started from the pole, opened the race at Autodromo Hermanos Rodríguez trailing Piastri by 14 points in the driver standings. McLaren has already clinched its second consecutive constructors championship and is now seeking to end Verstappen's four-year reign as F1's world champion with either of its drivers.
Norris is now back on top of the standings for the first time since the fifth race of the season, in April; there are four races remaining in the season.
“It's one weekend at a time,” Norris said over a booming chorus of boos from the sold-out crowd of 150,000 spectators. The booing caused Norris to pause his trackside interview and he laughed nervously before continuing.
“I'm happy, I am focused on myself, I keep my head down, I ignore all of it. I keep to myself and it is working.”
Verstappen, meanwhile, arrived in Mexico City with three wins in the past four races to put himself back into title contention. He finished third on Sunday with a late virtual safety car preventing the Red Bull driver for passing Charles Leclerc for second.
Verstappen was 104 points behind Piastri six races ago but has put himself in position to challenge for a fifth consecutive title. He's now 36 points out of the lead.
The gap could have been even tighter had the safety car not limited Verstappen's chances to pass Leclerc over the final two laps.
“I mean, you win some, you lose some, right?” Verstappen said. “Sometimes the safety car works for you and sometimes it works against you.”
Oliver Bearman finished a career-best fourth to give Haas the second top-four finish in team history.
Norris' first career victory in Mexico City seemed like an easy Sunday drive as he crossed the finish line more than 30 seconds ahead of Leclerc.
“I could just keep my eyes focused, and just keep eyes forward and focus on what I was doing,” Norris said. “A pretty straightforward race for me, which is just what I was after.”
The next F1 race is the Brazilian Grand Prix on Nov. 9. Verstappen has won the last two races at Interlagos.
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AP auto racing: https://apnews.com/hub/auto-racing
