Category World News

Max Verstappen from Red Bull won the US Grand Prix from pole position on Sunday, leading everyone in every lap, extending Oscar Piastri’s Formula One championship lead to seventh place in Texas.

Five laps from the chequered flag, McLaren’s Piastri passed Lando Norris, his teammate and closest competitor, just seconds after passing Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc, the winner of the previous year, at the finish line.

With five rounds and two sprints left, Piastri now leads Britain’s Norris by 14 points, while Verstappen cut his Australian lead to 40 after being 104 behind at the end of August.

Verstappen also won the weekend sprint at Austin’s Circuit of the Americas from pole position, helping the McLarens collide and retire on a weekend with maximum points for the four-time world champion.

McLaren has already clinched the title of constructor.

Verstappen asserts that there is a title chance.

Verstappen remarked of the title battle, “For sure, there is a chance.” We just need to make an effort to deliver these weekends until the very end.

We’ll make every effort possible. He continued, “It’s exciting,” after recording his 68th victory in his career in his third of his career.

Piastri asserted that he still had full confidence in his ability to win the title for Australia the first time since 1980’s Alan Jones.

The 24-year-old added, “I’d still rather be where I’m than the other two.”

Leclerc won the race for Norris at the start, but it took 21 laps to get back in as the&nbsp, Monegasque, held a defensive masterclass on the faster but less durable soft tyres.

Leclerc and Lewis Hamilton then squared off in a battle that moved up to third and fourth, with Piastri moving up to third and Lewis Hamilton returning in ninth place.

Verstappen was already ten seconds away from his closest rival.

After the rest of the frontrunners had made their pit stops, Leclerc was once more in second place behind Verstappen and Verstappen, with Norris third having to overtake with a track limitations warning hanging over him.

Done, Norris fought back and finished in a time of 7.9 seconds behind Verstappen and 7.4 ahead of Ferrari.

It was difficult, they said. We made every effort possible in a fight that generated some excitement for the fans as Verstappen completed lap after lap that was largely absent from the global television feed.

I anticipated a second attempt to pass, but that wasn’t the case. A very strong race was led by Charles. Good battles and good fun ensued. Therefore, we must take the break. There isn’t much else we can do right now.

Andrea Stella, the McLaren team’s manager, claimed Norris could have won if Ferrari hadn’t obstructed his efforts.

Piastri was just 1.1 seconds away, and Mercedes took the chequered flag in sixth place after George Russell, who won the previous race in Singapore, took the title.

Oliver Bearman and Nico Hulkenberg of Red Bull placed third, ahead of Oliver Bearman of Haas and Yuki Tsunoda of Red Bull. Aston Martin’s driver took the win in the end, taking Fernando Alonso.

When Mercedes’ rookie Italian Kimi Antonelli and Williams’ Carlos Sainz collided on lap 7, the Spaniard retired after attempting to overtake for seventh place inside.

Sainz a , five-place , grid penalty at the Mexican Grand Prix next weekend, plus two penalty points, were awarded by stewards for the collision.

Alex Albon, Sainz’s teammate, and Gabriel Bortoleto, a rookie from Brazil, collided in the first corner.

Although the race was held at a lower temperature than anticipated, the weekend was declared a heat hazard (about 28.6 degrees Celsius (83. 5 Fahrenheit).

According to the nation’s Supreme Electoral Tribunal (TSE), Paz had won 54.5 percent of the vote in the run-off race on Sunday, far ahead of the country’s right-wing interim president Jorge “Tuto” Quiroga, who received 45.4% of the vote.

Paz, 58, entered politics after his father, former president of the left, Jaime Zamora.

After earning his economics degree in the United States, Paz moved back to Bolivia and became the mayor and city councillor of Tarija, before becoming the region’s senator in 2020.

He has promised to use a “capitalism for all” strategy, as well as decentralizing the national government and promoting tax cuts and tariff reductions.

Edmand Lara, Paz’s vice-presidential running mate, pleaded for “unity and reconciliation” after the results were released.

“We must ensure the availability of diesel and gasoline. People are experiencing pain. According to Lara, we need to stabilise the prices of the basic food basket and end corruption.

After former left-wing president Evo Morales was barred from running in August’s preliminary election and retiring president Luis Arce, who had fought with Morales, decided to withdraw from the race, the incumbent MAS party suffered a significant defeat on Sunday.

Due to term limits and party affiliation-related technicalities, courts had previously rejected Morales’ candidacy.

Few expected MAS to win back control of their left-wing coalition, which coincided with the country’s severe economic crisis.

Morales, who is still a popular figure among indigenous Bolivians, will continue to face stiff opposition from the new president even if the National Congress dissolves.

Morales told reporters that the two candidates only “represented a small number of people in Bolivia” on Sunday.

He claimed that they don’t represent the Indigenous movement or the popular movement at all.

After serving just one term as president beginning in 2020, Arce is scheduled to step down on November 8. He did not seek re-election, but Bolivia’s constitution allows for two terms.

economic issues

The Andean nation has been dealing with a severe economic crisis, which has resulted in nearly 25% annual inflation and severe US dollar and fuel shortages.

In the run-up to the August 17 general election, Bolivians took to the streets to protest high prices and hours-long waits for essential items like food.

Under Morales, who nationalized the gas industry and invested the money in social initiatives that halved extreme poverty during his time in power between 2006 and 2019, Bolivia had experienced more than a decade of robust growth and Indigenous empowerment.

However, after Morales, who was outspoken about climate change and environmental issues, decided not to grow the nation’s gas industry, energy revenues dropped from a peak of $ 6.1 billion in 2013 to $1.6 billion in 2024, leaving the government without the foreign exchange needed to import wheat, wheat, and other foods.