Max Verstappen became a four-time world champion with an assured drive to fifth place during Saturday night’s Las Vegas Grand Prix, while pole sitter, George Russell and the charging Lewis Hamilton earned a one-two finish for Mercedes!
Verstappen entered the 50 lap encounter knowing that all he needed to do was keep title rival Lando Norris behind him to secure another title, which the Dutchman achieved by holding position into the first corner and gradually pulled away from the British driver.
Having held a podium spot after the second round of pit stops, Verstappen opted against a fight when the Ferrari’s arrived at the rear of his Red Bull in the closing laps – both Carlos Sainz and Charles Leclerc finding a way past before the chequered flag.
At the front, Russell expertly managed a tricky race in cool, slippery conditions, keeping a fast-starting Leclerc at bay in the early laps – the latter running into tyre troubles as a result of that aggression – and controlling proceedings thereafter.
The full top 10 are – P1: Russell, P2: Hamilton, P3: Sainz, P4: Leclerc, P5: Verstappen, P6: Norris, P7: Piastri, P8: Hulkenberg, P9: Tsunoda and P10: Perez.
What a result for Mercedes, 1-2 for the team!! Coming into the weekend I would’ve been surprised however because they’ve had a very strong weekend it wasn’t too much of a shock.
George kept his cool and grabbed the win from pole position and Lewis just had a superb drive from P10 to P2, it does make you think if he had qualified well, could he of got this win?
An overall note though from the race is that the Mercs were just flying and no-one could really challenge them so it will be interesting to see if this happens again in the final two races…
A very good result for Ferrari especially with the battle of the Constructors’ Championship still to win. Sainz finished 3rd and Leclerc 4th! There was a few words said after the race from Leclerc with the radio message. It will be interesting to see how the team goes forward with two races left.
P5 for Verstappen, I think in an ideal world he would’ve loved to win the race and claim his fourth Championship. However, he got it done with two races left! A big congratulations to Max and Red Bull for a fourth consecutive Drivers’ Championship it’s not an easy task!
His teammate had made some good overtakes in the race to finish 10th so his managed to score a point, but it’s still very dissapointing.
A not so good weekend for McLaren, they were kind of nowhere, didn’t really do anything amazing as the pace just wasn’t there. Norris finished 6th and Piastri in 7th, so still a decent haul of points but still not good enough.
A very good result for both Hulkenberg who finished in P8 and Tsunoda who finished P9, it will help the teams massively in the Constructors’ and with two races left they will be trying to grab as many points as they can.
A disappointing race for Pierre Gasly, as he DNF’ed from starting P3. He had smoke exiting the rear of his pink Alpine, he was forced to pit lane and retire from the race.
We don’t have too long to wait till the next race as its this week! And it is the return of the Sprint in Qatar…
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