AUSTIN, Texas -- Max Verstappen's remarkable pursuit of a fifth world title continued at the United States Grand Prix after an assured victory further cut the gap to championship leader Oscar Piastri.
Piastri could manage only a fifth-place finish after struggling all weekend with his McLaren, meaning Verstappen outscored the championship leader by 15 points and reduced the gap in the standings to 40.
Lando Norris also made inroads on Piastri's championship lead with a second-place finish, meaning his gap to his McLaren teammate now stands at 14 points with five races remaining.
The result means Verstappen has closed the gap to Piastri by 64 points over the past four rounds and is now 26 points behind Norris in second place.
"It was an unbelievable weekend for us," Verstappen said after the race. "I knew that the race was, of course, not going to be super straightforward. I think if you look at the whole race, the pace between myself and Lando was really close. I think just in that first stint, that's where we made the difference. I could eke out a little bit of a gap, and that's basically what we what we kept till the end."
On the battle for the drivers' championship, Verstappen confirmed "the chance is there. We just need to try and deliver these kinds of weekends now till the end. So, just try whatever we can. I think it's exciting, and I'm just very excited to the end."
To underscore Verstappen's momentum, it was the Red Bull driver's third win in four races, and followed victory in Saturday's sprint race, which both McLaren cars failed to finish.
Verstappen's Sunday victory never looked in doubt after Norris, who started second, was passed by Charles Leclerc in the first corner and then became bottled up behind the Ferrari for the vast majority of the race.
Norris initially overtook Leclerc on Lap 21 but lost the position again when the Ferrari driver made an earlier pit stop for fresh tires and undercut the McLaren.
Norris quickly latched onto the back of the Ferrari but struggled with his tires overheating, meaning he had to back off and create a gap to Leclerc around Lap 40.
After cooling down his tires, Norris resumed his pursuit of Leclerc and passed the Ferrari on Lap 51 with another clean move at Turn 12.
"Finally. It took long enough," Norris said of the overtake. "No, it was a good battle with Charles. He fought hard and was tough. We did everything we could.
"I thought we kind of had it in an easier way. We got ahead and then we did the overcut, or we went much longer. I expected a slightly easier second attempt to get through, but it wasn't the case. So, Charles drove a very good race. Was good fun, good battles. I have to take second, not a lot more we could have done today."
After winning in Austin last year, Leclerc had to settle for his sixth podium finish of the season in third place ahead of teammate Lewis Hamilton in fourth.
"I'm very happy overall, because it's been a tough second part of the year, and to be back on the podium here, after what was a difficult FP1 with the gearbox problem, we recovered well," Leclerc said. "I'm happy now. Unfortunately, today I lost out at the end, but I had fun in the car."
Behind Piastri in fifth place, George Russell took sixth for Mercedes ahead of the second Red Bull of Yuki Tsunoda in seventh.
After crashing out of Saturday's sprint race along with the McLarens, Nico Hülkenberg secured points for Sauber with eighth place ahead of the Haas of Oliver Bearman and Fernando Alonso's Aston Martin in 10th.