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.
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 34 points out of the lead.
Oliver Bearman finished a career-best fourth to give Haas the second top-four finish in team history.
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
