McLaren's title duellists Piastri and Norris looking warily for Verstappen's late charge ahead of US GP

Days after celebrating the retention of their constructors' world championship title, McLaren's dueling duo of series leader Oscar Piastri and Lando Norris will be looking warily in their rear-view mirrors this weekend for Max Verstappen.

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With six rounds of the world championship remaining, the top team's title contenders are separated by just 22 points with the four-time champion adrift by 63 points, but revelling in his recent form after beating both McLarens in the last three races.

In that time, he has reduced a 104-point deficit to Piastri at the start of September by 41 points to turn a seemingly lost cause into a thrilling late, if unexpected, charge for a fifth title. If he succeeds, it will be a record for overturning a deficit.

Former champion Jacques Villneuve, who took the title in 1997, believes the Dutchman is posted to succeed and told Italian daily La Gazetta dello Sport that it will be his “best world championship.... The two McLaren drivers are suffering too much from the pressure and they need to wake up”.

This weekend's US Grand Prix at the Circuit of the Americas is likely, therefore, to be the scene of much drama as the two McLaren men, in a car that has not been updated in recent weeks, attempting to fend off the much-revised and potent Red Bull.

That it is a ‘sprint race’ weekend, the first of three remaining this year, only adds to the potential for shredded nerves.