Oscar Piastri's recent F1 struggles have continued, crashing out of the Sprint race at the US Grand Prix before a disappointing qualifying session for the main race in Texas.
Piastri and McLaren teammate Lando Norris were seemingly locked in a two-horse race for this year's world championship and the team locked up the constructors' title in Singapore with six races remaining.
But Max Verstappen has been ominously lurking in the background, picking up two wins and two seconds from the last four races to eat into Piastri's lead.
The Dutchman closed the gap further after Piastri took a shunt from Nico Hulkenberg trying to get an inside line past Norris at the start of the Sprint race and then took out both himself and his teammate.
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There were differing views on blame initially, but it was mostly put down to bad luck as Verstappen raced away to take the Sprint victory and is also on pole for the main race, with Norris second and Piastri back in sixth.
“I think it is just a racing incident," Aussie Piastri said of the Turn 1 crash.
"Lando and I were a long way from the apex and it’s impossible to see everything at that point.
“If I had have known there was three wide behind me, maybe I could have done something a little different.
“But you have to trust your gut, and your instinct, and that’s what I did.”
The last victory for either Piastri or Norris came via the Australian at the Dutch Grand Prix on August 31 and the Victorian could do with a morale-boosting result in Texas.
With overtaking more of an option at the Circuit of the Americas than some of the other tight tracks on the calendar, Piastri isn't writing off his chances just yet.
“When you don’t have the pace you want, it’s never the nicest feeling,” he said.
“But there’s a lot of opportunities tomorrow. Strategy things, hopefully our race pace will be good.
“It’s a track you can overtake on, so we’ll see what we can do, but the weekend is far from over.”