Max Verstappen took a commanding victory at the Las Vegas Grand Prix after a loose jump from Sando Norris’s saddle at the start kept his title on hold.
The victory puts Verppenpen points behind Norris, but only 12 points behind second-placed Oscar Piastri in the championship standings to take another Australian tailback in fourth place.
Norris reacted well to the lights but was too eager to try to cover verArppen on the inside. The title leader carved furiously to his left but in doing so missed his breaking point and sailed into the driven area.
Verstappen was easily clipped – Norris came close to beating him as he met him – and in the melee George Russell beat the McLarens in turn 4 to squeeze into second place.
Racing, the first dry session since Thursday.
Russell was the first runner in the battle for the podium. The Briton had been frustrated in his fight with Verstappen in the morning but reported on LAP 14 that the steering problem which had hampered his fair performance had improved.
His race was then defensive to keep Norris at Bay for second place, and he stopped on Lap 18 to switch from clutch to hard.
Norris sat down to take advantage of the fresh air in front of him and put his foot on the floor to reduce the effect of the tension below. When he took his service on Lap 22 he only lapped 2.5 seconds behind his teammate.
The removal of small tires was increased by Russell pressing hard and early to catch Verstappen after the Dutch stop, taking more life from his rubber. Combined with Russell’s steering problem, Norris ended up with a significant advantage at the end of the race.
The McLaren locked in the Mercedes Car’s Gearbox on Lap 33. Russell signaled on the radio that he would not fight hard to keep a place on the podium – despite holding a 14s advantage in fourth place.
The move, down the back straight, was an easy slipstream pass, putting Norris in the top spot on Lap 34.
He had 4,9s to close on Verstappen with 16 laps remaining and two laps later set the fastest lap of the race as a statement of intent, but Verstappen, who had laps and was equal to the challenge. He returned some very quick laps and slowly allowed himself to open up a gap to claim his sixth win of the season.
“Usually the race is always difficult for us,” he said. “Usually we’re not good on tyres, but today it seemed like we had that much under control and I was pushing a little too hard.
“I could have stayed longer and we basically split the race in half. That helped a lot.
“Our car was working well, much to my liking, and it was at the end of a good gap.”
Norris was credited with a poor lift and coast in the final room, beating the deficit to 20.7s and keeping him just ahead of Russell in the third quarter.
“I gave max for letting him go,” he teased at the start. “I just digested too late. It was my F-up.
“It’s not my best work out there, but when a guy wins in the 20s, because he just does a better job and is faster.”
Russell finished a compromise third but in a comfortable third, helped in part by Andrea Kimi Antonelli, who was the protection of the ropes in the mountains entered the race.
“It was really hard,” she said. “Not a great race from the outside, but standing here on the podium is probably the biggest number we could get.”
Antonelli took the checkered flag for the fourth time, from 17th on the grid, after switching from softs to hards at the end of lap 2, during the first safety car.
The Italian rookie didn’t stop either, going all the way up in the fourth when the others took their stops, putting him in perfect position to play a strong defensive game to score the ailing Russell.
Piastri was cut off from the leaders on the first lap, when Lawson’s comical Lawson closed in on the first corner and stabbed him, calling Australia his place but also, and in his IsaJar.
Piastri emerged from the contact unscathed, but Lawson’s front wing later collapsed, throwing him backwards.
Australia finally came back from Hadjar when he responded quickly with a short safe car on the 16th plateau, but not before Charles Leclerc, showing a much improved dry speed, cut from both.
The stop in advance, on Lap 21, spread in front of Leclerc, but he did not have the speed to pass antonelli who is smart and defends hard – or the 5th penalty of the Italian that promotes Piastri to fourth after the flag.
Piastri’s fourth place lost him a further six points to Taxis leader Norris, whose lead now stands at 30 points and who finished last weekend’s QATAR round.
Leclerc finished sixth and just 0,1S behind the punishing Antonelli, his Ferrari more competitive in dry conditions than in the wet.
Carlos Sainz finished seventh, down from the third highest on the grid and emerged as the starting point among the mid- and mid- and junior-mid-rangers.
Despite a strong start, Sack Hadjar returned to his first place at the age of eight, ahead of Nico Hulkenberg and Lewis Hamilton, both of whom started at the Hards and moved into points, two and nine places respectively.
The result
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