Verstappen slips after owner’s death
AUSTIN — Ferrari's Carlos Sainz will start on pole position for the United States Grand Prix after season champion Max Verstappen finished third in Saturday's qualifying session that began shortly after his Red Bull team learned that founder and owner Dietrich Mateschitz had died.
Verstappen will still start on the front row. Ferrari's Charles Leclerc qualified second, but must take a 10-place grid penalty for using new engine parts.
Every winner in the previous nine races at the Circuit of the Americas has started from the front row.
Verstappen is chasing a single-season recordtying 13th victory. He clinched his second consecutive season championship at the previous race in Japan.
Verstappen and his Red Bull teammate Sergio Perez had to drive less than an hour after the team was gathered together to be told Mateschitz had died at age 78.
“What he has done for me, my career so far, my life,” said Verstappen, who joined F1 as a 17-yearold with Red Bull's junior team, then named Toro Rosso.
“It's a very tough day ... We tried to give it everything but unfortunately we missed out. But there's a race tomorrow and we'll try and make (him) proud.”
Since its founding, Red Bull has won six driver championships and four constructors titles. The team is close to clinching a fifth team championship and could wrap it up on Sunday.
Cheating talk is ‘shocking’
Red Bull team boss Christian Horner denied his championship-winning team gained any competitive advantage by what has been deemed a “minor” breach of Formula One's spending rules, and called suggestions that it amounted to cheating “shocking.”
Red Bull has been dogged by questions at the United States Grand Prix about Verstappen's championships last season and this year after F1's governing body revealed the team had a “minor” violation of the 2021 spending cap.
But that could still amount to several million dollars and some teams and drivers have demanded harsh penalties to punish Red Bull and protect the integrity of the sport.
McLaren chief executive Zak Brown wrote a letter to the FIA that didn't specifically name Red Bull, but said any overspending should be considered “cheating.”
Horner and Brown sat
next to each other for F1's weekend news conference, and Horner angrily complained that Red Bull had been put “on trial” even though few details of the spending violations have been released.
“Suddenly we are tried and subjected to three weeks of effective abuse. And then to be seeing a letter accusing us of cheating and being fraudulent, it is just not right, and this has to stop,” Horner said.
ESPN and F1 announce deal
With Formula's One popularity and viewership booming in the United States, ESPN and the global motorsports series announced a new broadcast deal Saturday through 2025.
ESPN has broadcast F1 in the U.S. since 2018 and the new deal will keep commercial-free, live telecasts for all races on ESPN, ESPN2 or ABC, all owned by the Walt Disney Co. ESPN Deportes will continue as the Spanishlanguage home of F1 in the U.S.