Off-track soap opera follows F1 to America

MIAMI GARDENS, Fla. (AP) — Five races into the Formula 1 season, Max Verstappen and the globe-trotting series have arrived in the United States for the first of three appearances in a year the Red Bull driver already seems to have under wraps.

Verstappen has four wins through five races headed into this weekend's Miami Grand Prix, an event he won in its first two iterations.

Don't shrug off this F1 season so quickly. The actual racing has been dwarfed by off-track scandal, and the soap opera has very much carried into Miami.

Adrian Newey, the chief technical officer at Red Bull Racing and architect of its record-breaking, championship-winning cars, said this week he will step down early next year. The context, of course, is that the team has been dealing with allegations of inappropriate conduct toward an employee by team principal Christian Horner.

Red Bull cleared Horner of any wrongdoing and the employee has been suspended. But the employee has appealed Red Bull's findings and representatives of the employee claim to have filed a report with the FIA, the governing body for F1. The FIA has not acknowledged any complaint and the only person still talking about the scandal seems to be Verstappen's father, Jos; the former F1 driver has alleged Newey's departure is related and the entire organization is in danger of imploding.

For what it's worth, Newey and Horner were flying from England to Miami together on Thursday.

Mario Andretti spent Wednesday on Capitol Hill collecting congressional signatures in support of Andretti Global's ongoing bid with General Motors to earn a spot for a “true American team” on the F1 grid.

Formula One Management, which is owned by American company Liberty Media, late last year rejected the Andretti application but “work continues" by the organization to make it happen. Michael Andretti last month officially opened the factory for his F1 team in England and, along with General Motors officials, met with F1.

Although the meeting did not open warmly, Michael Andretti said, he was feeling better about it by the time it ended. A second meeting is scheduled for this weekend in Miami.

His father left Washington with a letter and 12 congressional