Max Verstappen survived an attack from George Russell to win the United States Grand Prix sprint race and make up ground on his 2025 Formula 1 title rivals as both McLaren drivers were wiped out in a multi-car clash at the first corner.

From third on the grid, Oscar Piastri got marginally the better launch compared to team-mate and second-place starter Lando Norris on the run uphill to the Turn 1 left-hander.

With no chance to overtake around the outside, Piastri instead switched back underneath Norris - who like polesitter Verstappen appeared to run slightly deep into the first corner - in a bid to get a better run off the corner.

But that brought him into the path of Nico Hulkenberg, the Sauber driver trying to defend his fourth-place starting position from Aston Martin's Fernando Alonso on the inside, who could do nothing to avoid contact with championship leader Piastri - whose pitched McLaren tagged team-mate Norris's.

Norris stopped on the spot, Piastri parked up with front-right suspension damage not long after, Alonso also retired - and multiple bits of debris meant the race was neutralised for a considerable time by the intervention of the safety car, during which McLaren CEO Zak Brown spuriously claimed Hulkenberg had "no business being where he was".

Race control declared as the sprint restarted that the Turn 1 incident had been reviewed and would not be further investigated.

That should've meant a routine victory for Verstappen when the race restarted at the end of lap five of 19, but it wasn't as straightforward from there as he might've expected.

He was fastest of all on the first full lap after the restart, but Russell kept his Mercedes just within a second of the Red Bull in the early going and launched a DRS-assisted attack into the Turn 12 right-hander at the end of the back straight on lap eight.