Las Vegas– max verstappen Claimed his second Las Vegas Grand Prix victory ahead of the championship leader lando norris To keep their slim championship chances alive.
Second place helped Norris move closer to his first World Championship, meaning he went into the Qatar Grand Prix 30 points ahead of his McLaren teammate. oscar piastri And 42 points ahead of Verstappen with 58 points to play for in the next two weeks.
However, in a dramatic turn of events, the McLaren cars of Norris and Piastri are being investigated by managers Both their cars have skid wear problems, thus threatening disqualification.
Verstappen won by almost 21 seconds as Norris made a car mess late on, but it was not enough to allow the Mercedes driver george russell To steal second place from Norris.
Piastri had to settle for fourth place as his streak of failing to overtake teammate Norris continued, which stretched back to his victory at the Dutch Grand Prix in late August.
Norris’ lead means he can win the championship at next week’s Qatar Grand Prix if his championship lead is 25 points or more when the race ends on December 30, but Verstappen’s Sin City victory keeps his exciting wild-card title bid alive for at least another week.
Verstappen looked dead and buried coming out of the summer break, but he is back into contention in what will go down as one of F1’s great late-season charges. The Dutchman has won four out of seven races since the break.
Verstappen took control of Saturday night’s incident on the opening lap of the race. Norris started from pole position and moved aggressively down the track to hold off the Red Bull driver and reigning four-time world champion, but then raced deep into Turn 1.
This allowed Verstappen to pass Norris at the next corner and also allowed Russell to overtake him. Despite a brief spell where Russell was in Verstappen’s DRS range, his lead never looked under threat.
The McLaren looked confident of catching Verstappen in the closing laps, but Norris dropped back dramatically in the closing laps due to a late car issue, although not enough for Russell to catch him.
Had Piastri, who started fifth, got a better start he would have been in a better position to take advantage; Australian was lucky to escape race ender when he was hit by Racing Bulls driver Liam Lawson At turn 1.
At one point, Piastri was running seventh, but made a cleverly timed pit stop and a five-second jump start penalty for the Mercedes newbie. kmy antonelli The race saw Piastri climb up to fourth place by the end of the race.
ferrari driver charles leclerc Finished sixth behind Antonelli. And although Ferrari teammates Lewis Hamilton Relegated from the back of the grid to 10th, it was another extremely disappointing weekend for the Scuderia in what most predicted would be its last opportunity to score a Grand Prix win in 2025.
williams driver carlos saenz Racing Bulls finished seventh, ahead of rookie isaac hadjar and sober Nico Hulkenberg,
