Ferrari are now in their longest-ever championship drought · RaceFans

Max Verstappen’s fourth consecutive drivers’ championship was hard-won, but also statistically preordained.

Every driver in Formula 1 history who has won three consecutive championships has gone on to take a fourth, a pattern Verstappen continued last weekend. Among the four drivers he emulated were Juan Manuel Fangio in 1957 and Michael Schumacher in 2003.

Verstappen also did the same as the only other driver to win a world championship for Red Bull, Sebastian Vettel, in 2013 and his immediate predecessor as champion, Lewis Hamilton, in 2020. Alain Prost is the only four-time F1 champion who did not win four in a row.

The Red Bull driver has now won two titles on a Sunday and two on a Saturday. Prior to Verstappen’s title-clinching drive in the Qatar sprint race last year, no driver had won the world championship on a Saturday since Keke Rosberg in the 1982 Caesars Palace Grand Prix in Las Vegas. The only driver who won the title outside of a Sunday was Nelson Piquet, who became champion in 1987 when Nigel Mansell’s crash during Friday practice ruled him out of the penultimate round in Japan.

Max Verstappen, Red Bull, Las Vegas Strip Circuit, 2024 — Verstappen made it four in a row

The constructors’ championship is yet to be decided, but Ferrari moved closer to leaders McLaren as Carlos Sainz Jnr and Charles Leclerc finished third and fourth. Since the last race weekend Ferrari are now in their longest ever constructors’ championship drought: It’s been 5,866 days since they won the 2008 title, six days longer than the gap between their 1983 and 1999 wins.

George Russell claimed the third grand prix win of his career and led Mercedes to their first one-two of the season. All this also happened at Spa earlier this year, only for Russell to be disqualified due to a technical infringement.

F1 has set new records for competitiveness this year thanks to Russell’s win. He is the seventh different driver to claim more than one win, beating the 1981 record of six. The only exception among the leading four teams is the entirely win-less Sergio Perez.

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Four different teams have now won four races each, which has also never happened before. But of course this was not possible in 30 of the 76 world championship seasons when fewer than 16 rounds were held.

Nelson Piquet, Carlos Reutemann, 1981 — Piquet and Reutemann were two of six multiple winners in 1981

Six different drivers have won the last six rounds: Oscar Piastri, Lando Norris, Leclerc, Sainz, Verstappen and Russell. There hasn’t been a season with more than seven in a row for the last 40 years, and the record stands at nine.

F1 has now had 13 grands prix without any driver taking back-to-back victories. This last happened from the final round of the 2016 season up to the 12th event of the following year.

Russell’s win came from the fifth pole position of the year (including his 2022 Brazilian Grand Prix pole position, which Formula 1 ignores) and puts him level with Giuseppe Farina, Chris Amon, Clay Regazzoni, Patrick Tambay and Keke Rosberg.

Norris claimed the fastest lap for the fifth time this year. No one else can therefore win the pole position trophy outright this year, though either Verstappen or Leclerc could share it with the McLaren driver.

Pierre Gasly took a remarkable third on the grid for Alpine. This was the second-highest starting position of his career after his sole front row appearance at the 2021 Qatar Grand Prix, when he took second for AlphaTauri (due partly to the damage he picked up on his final lap and the resulting yellow flag it caused).

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Aston Martin’s recent slump continued. They were the slowest team in terms of one-lap pace last weekend and failed to score for fourth event in a row, their worst run since their five-race point-less spell which straddled the 2022 and 2023 campaigns.

The Las Vegas Grand Prix was the 79th world championship round to take place in the United States. The USA, which holds three rounds per season, is now the second most frequent host of grands prix, tied with Britain (one race per year) and Germany (none). However it will take many more years for it to catch up to Italy, which currently holds two races per year and has already staged 107.