Max Verstappen caps off perhaps his most impressive season yet at the Las Vegas GP

A season ago the combination of Max Verstappen and the RB19 effectively ended the Formula 1 title race before the summer break. The sport’s dominant driver, in the cockpit of one of the greatest cars in F1 history, left the rest of the field fighting for second behind him. It was a masterful display of driver, skill, and engineering at the highest level of the sport.

Verstappen clinched the 2024 Drivers’ title on Saturday night in the Las Vegas Grand Prix with his fifth-place finish, and it might have been his most impressive season yet. It was not the dominant victory from 2023, or the narrow victory over Lewis Hamilton in 2021 that came down to the final lap of the season and remains a point of contention to this day. Instead, it was a title that asked the most of Verstappen, as he was pushed throughout the year by Lando Norris and asked to win with a 2024 challenger, the RB20, that was not the machine its predecessor was.

That was perhaps best exemplified by the image of the RB20’s rear wing in Las Vegas, with additional surfaces drilled away by the team to reduce drag, making the “Oracle” logo on the component indecipherable.

But effective enough in the hands of one of the sport’s living legends.

That was the story of Verstappen’s season. Even when he did not have the best car on the grid, he was able to limit the damage, and find ways to maximise each race weekend. He only finished outside the points in one Grand Prix this season, back at the Australian Grand Prix when a brake duct failure forced his retirement.

Outside of that, his worst Grand Prix finishes were a trio of P6 results, in Canada, Monza, and Mexico City.

Verstappen also made the most of the F1 Sprint Race opportunities. While the Dutch driver has been known in the past to decry the busy Formula 1 schedule, of the five F1 Sprint races that have been held so far this year, Verstappen has won four of them.

Verstappen’s rivals praised his incredible season.

“He had a dominant car at the start of the year and he got the wins when he needed to and then genuinely thought he probably wasn’t going to win this championship,” said George Russell. “And he delivered week in, week out, and got the best result the car was capable of and his rivals didn’t.

“I thought it was going to go right to the wire, and he won with [two] races to go. So huge congrats to him.”

“He’s driven for four years now at an incredibly high level,” said Carlos Sainz Jr. “I think this year he just dominated whenever he had a dominant car and then he didn’t do mistakes and maximised the points that he could get with a less-performing car and just did whatever he had to do in every race. And congrats because he clearly deserves it.”

The title also pulled Verstappen level with Sebastian Vettel and Alain Prost on the all-time list, one behind Juan Manuel Fangio and three behind Michael Schumacher and Hamilton, who both stand atop the list with seven titles each.

Verstappen might have needed to fight for this one, but it was one he will truly cherish.

“You need to have the right team to be able to achieve that for a long period of time. It’s not something that I set out to do. Of course, if it happens, it happens. But I’m already very proud to win four,” said Verstappen in the FIA Press Conference after the race. “I mean, at the end of the day, winning one or seven, it’s the same thing, right? But, of course, if you can repeat it a few times, that is very nice. And, of course, I know that if we have that opportunity again, I mean, even with not the fastest car, we still won it, so I always know that when I sit in the car, I’m going to give it everything I have.

“And of course, over the last few years, I also grew as a driver and you definitely become more all around. So in a way, of course, also very excited to see what we can do next year. It’s very unknown at the moment, of course, how competitive we are going to be. But for now, I’m just going to enjoy the moment.”

Winning a title? That makes you one of the winners of the Las Vegas Grand Prix, as well as the entire season.

Here are the full race results, as well as some more winners and losers from the Las Vegas Grand Prix:

Winners … but frustrated winners: Ferrari

With Carlos Sainz Jr. taking the final podium spot, and Charles Leclerc finishing fourth, Ferrari banked 27 points in Las Vegas, pulling 12 points closer to McLaren at the sharp end of the F1 Constructors’ Championship standings.

That alone makes Ferrari some of the big winners from the Las Vegas Grand Prix, as they will head to Qatar just 24 points behind the Woking-based operation with two race weekends remaining.

However, all might not be well in Maranello.

Following the race radio messages between Leclerc and engineer Bryan Bozzi contained more than a bit of profanity, with the driver venting his frustrations. “Yeah. Yeah-yeah. Yeah, I did my job, but, uh… being nice f***s me over all the f***ing time. All the f***ing time. It’s not even being nice, it’s just being respectful, I know I need to … -shut up, but at one point it’s always the same. Oh my f***ing God.”

Leclerc may have been angered by a Sainz overtaking him late in the race, following a round of pit stops. Earlier in the race both drivers were dealing with severe tire degradation, and Leclerc agreed to let Sainz by him during that first stint, only to see Sainz deal with the same degradation.

Then later in the race, Leclerc was told that Sainz had been instructed over two different radio messages not to overtake Leclerc or put him under pressure, so Leclerc could work on saving his tires.

Sainz overtook him anyway.

Leclerc, clearly frustrated, jabbed that the team might want to “try in Spanish.”

Speaking with Sky Sports after the race, Leclerc held back somewhat but noted that the situation was “frustrating.”

“I think I did my part in the first stint when I had the tires that were completely gone, I didn’t want to fight so I let Carlos by and then the rest is – we will discuss it within the team. I don’t want to go into details,” Leclerc continued.

“Again, I’ve already said too much. I don’t want to go into the details whatsoever. It’s just frustrating when it’s like this and it’s been frustrating for me, but I can understand not everybody understands.”

There seemed to be some frustration on Sainz’s part as well.

“So… I guess [Charles is] not happy but I’m also not happy by the way things were handled at the time. And yeah, I think no one’s happy today in the team because we all expected a bit more,” said Sainz.

“I am on the podium so at least I got that for the team, but at the same time I don’t think we could’ve finished much better than P3 and P4 today.”

Team Principal Frederic Vasseur acknowledged that Leclerc may be unhappy but added “I think it’s more the fact that the situation was really difficult for everybody. We will discuss tonight, it won’t be an issue.”

Time will tell.

Losers: McLaren

Photo by Kym Illman/Getty Images

This was not McLaren’s weekend, and the team conceded as much after the race.

Not only did Norris see his slim chances at a Drivers’ Championship dashed with Verstappen finishing ahead of him in fifth, with Norris in sixth, but the team also lost ground to Ferrari in the Constructors’ Championship as outlined above. Oscar Piastri came home in seventh, undone by a five-second penalty handed down by the race officials when he was not properly inside his starting spot on the grid.

“As for today, it was a reasonable race but we didn’t have any pace in the car, and experienced difficult, challenging conditions. It’s just not been our weekend, we struggled a lot. Clearly we have a lot of things we need to improve on the car for the future,” said Norris after the race.

“We’ll now turn our attention to next weekend and coming back stronger in Qatar, a circuit that should suit our car better than Vegas. All our focus is on these last two races.”

Team Principal Andrea Stella expressed some optimism that Qatar and Abu Dhabi could be better tracks for the MCL38 but noted that the competitive nature of F1 this season means there are no guarantees.

“Tonight, we can’t be happy with the result, because we go racing to finish on the podium, and we go racing to win. We had some headaches with car and tire performance, and we’ll be doing a lot of analysis between here and Lusail,” said Stella. “Considering the weekend we’ve had, I think we were able to limit the damage this evening.

“Qatar and Abu Dhabi should be more suitable ground for the MCL38 – but there are four teams in contention for victory all of the time. That’s great for Formula 1, but it means we have to be performing at our absolute best if we are to win the Constructors’ Championship. Not very long ago, the notion that we would be in contention for the title would have been incredible, unthinkable – but now it’s realistic and we have to finish the job.”

Winners: Mercedes

Perhaps lost in the decision over Verstappen’s championship drive, and the tightening title fight in the Constructors’, was a dominant weekend from Mercedes. The Silver Arrows started strong on Thursday, with Lewis Hamilton topping the timing sheets in both FP1 and FP2. But you might excuse Mercedes fans for harboring their doubts into the weekend, after all, many times before they were the strongest package in practice, only to be undone in qualifying or in the race itself.

That history played out in part on Friday. While George Russell stormed to pole position, Lewis Hamilton only managed to qualify tenth, giving Silver Arrows fans a foreboding sense of Deja vu.

However, their fears were unfounded. Russell went wire-to-wire for a dominant win, followed to the checkered flag by Hamilton, who picked up multiple places on the track to close within striking distance at the end, for a second-place finish.

“I was just waiting for something to happen. You know, the two races I’ve been on pole before, it’s always been chaos, rain, dry, and always something happening, last race in Brazil you know with the red flag,” said Russell trackside after the race. “So, I’m like, I feel confident here, I’ve got a good gap but I’m just waiting for something to happen and it didn’t. So I guess luck has turned and yeah just so happy right now.”

Hamilton hailed the team’s “exceptional performance” over the entire weekend.

“I’m really happy for the team. It was an exceptional performance by everyone this weekend to claim the 1-2. The car felt strong throughout and I had a really fun and enjoyable race,” said Hamilton in the team’s post-race media review. “It felt great to be moving forward throughout as I had a long way to come back from! It is slightly bittersweet as if we had qualified where we should have yesterday, I think I could have won. Nevertheless, I didn’t think I would have been able to finish P2 today before the race so I’m very happy.”

The win accomplished two goals for the team. First, it gives them a bit of momentum as the season winds down, the the grid prepares to turn the page to 2025. Second, it helps the team with Toto Wolff’s stated goal of ending Hamilton’s run with Mercedes on a high note. Speaking to the media, including SB Nation, in Austin Wolff outlined how he wanted to see Hamilton’s long run with the Silver Arrows end the right way. While Wolff received a bit of criticism earlier in the week for some comments he made about Hamilton’s “shelf life,” in an upcoming book, he was filled with praise for the seven-time champion after the race.

“Lewis also drove fantastically to cut his way through the field from P10 to P2. He showed just how quick he is to secure a brilliant result for the team,” said Wolff in the team’s post-race report.

Mercedes Trackside Engineering Director Andrew Shovlin echoed that praise.

“Lewis meanwhile outperformed all our simulations today to achieve P2. His final stint was immense; he’ll be frustrated that he lost too much time in traffic to allow him to fight for the win but the 1-2 is of course a great result for the team,” said Shovlin.

Two race weekends remain this season, but Mercedes’ front-row lockout in Las Vegas was a tremendous result for the team, a bit of much-needed momentum, and a step towards bringing one of the most productive team-driver pairings in the history of the sport to a proper conclusion.

Losers: Alpine

Brazil was a moment of triumph for Alpine.

Las Vegas was something different.

After their 2024 season got off to a sluggish start with an overweight challenger and lap times at the back of the field, Esteban Ocon and Pierre Gasly navigated the wet and rain in São Paulo brilliantly, delivering a double-podium that rocketed Alpine to sixth in the F1 Constructors’ Championship standings.

The team was primed to build on that momentum in Las Vegas, with Ocon starting in P11 and Gasly up in third. But those dreams were derailed when a power unit failure forced Gasly’s retirement, and Ocon dropped to 11th, undone by a mistake on his first pit stop.

Those struggles, combined with a positive race for Haas, dropped Alpines to seventh in the standings.

“It’s not the outcome we were hoping for today. A Power Unit issue brought an early end to Pierre’s race. With Esteban, a mistake with his first stop meant he had to stop twice,” said Team Principal Oliver Oakes in the team’s post-race report. “We need to put this weekend behind us. The pace we showed yesterday, and in the race, underlines the positive improvements we have made in recent weeks and gives us reason to be optimistic heading into the final two races.”

Winners: Haas

Alpine’s struggles were Haas’ gain.

While the Enstone-based operation missed out on a tremendous opportunity, Haas did enough on Saturday night to take advantage, as Nico Hülkenberg converted his ninth-place start into an eighth-place finish, banking four points along the way. That result was enough to see Haas inch ahead of Alpine in the standings, into sixth place with 50 points on the season, just one ahead of seventh-place Alpine.

“I’m very pleased; I think P8 is the best we could’ve achieved today, being the fifth best team. It was a clean race, good execution and as expected, it was very challenging on the tire side with graining – on the front especially,” said Hülkenberg. “That kept everyone occupied and busy, but we came out of that well and offset ourselves a little bit to our main competition and that worked well, and our pace was also decent.”

Team Principal Ayao Komatsu was more effusive with his comments after the Las Vegas Grand Prix.

“I think that’s the best P8 we’ve ever achieved. It wasn’t an easy race to manage, but what I’m so happy about is that nobody panicked, and everyone stayed calm,” started Komatsu. “Everyone, including the team back at the factory, did their bit, and to have that strong two-stop race with Nico to get P8 is great. With Kevin, after the first lap was losing position etc. the only way we could get him back into the game was one-stop. His team did as well as they could in that scenario, nearly getting back to P10.

“I think it was a huge team effort, and back up into P6 in the Constructors’. After that terrible result in Brazil, it’s been an amazing reaction, and it gives people confidence, so I couldn’t be happier.”