Verstappen secures fourth title as Russell dominates race

Max Verstappen has secured his fourth Formula 1 championship, while George Russell converted pole into victory at the Las Vegas Grand Prix, holding off the threat from team-mate Lewis Hamilton.

Verstappen simply had to finish ahead of Lando Norris to secure a fourth successive title, and duly did so after crossing the line fifth – Norris was sixth. The Dutchman was running third, before losing position to both Ferraris in the final 10 laps.

In the meantime, Russell had an increasing threat from Hamilton to contend with in the final stages of the grand prix; Hamilton had recovered from 10th on the grid with passes on Oscar Piastri and Yuki Tsunoda in the early laps, before going long on his first stint to bring him on the tail of Verstappen, the Ferraris, and Norris.

This had initially flummoxed Hamilton who, having looked at the alternate-strategy midfielders around him on the circuit, initially believed he’d lost a handful of positions – but he became aware of his surroundings and soon put a move on Norris to start ladling the pressure on the Ferraris.

Ferrari rather gifted Hamilton the opportunity to get past when, during the second phase of stops, Carlos Sainz bailed out of entering the pitlane at the last minute while ahead of Hamilton.

This unwittingly granted Hamilton an undercut for a second set of hard tyres as the Ferrari duo stopped later, having lost grip on their first set of the white-walled tyres as the stint progressed.

Hamilton then fired a move on Verstappen with apparent ease at the end of lap 31 of 50, putting him just under 10 seconds behind Russell when the younger Mercedes driver eventually completed his second service.

Russell attempted to maintain the gap, but Hamilton was closing it at a decent rate of knots; the gap fell to 7.1s by the start of the 40th lap, and 5.7s two laps later, but it was at this point where Hamilton’s tyres began to grain – and the gap stabilised in Russell’s favour.

This ensured Russell could claim a second victory of 2024, and led home a Mercedes 1-2 with a 7.3s advantage over his Ferrari-bound team-mate.

Sainz completed the top three after preserving position ahead of team-mate Charles Leclerc as the Monegasque left the pits; Leclerc had initially surged into second at the start of the race, but met the limit of his medium tyres’ life after seven laps and soon lost position to both Sainz and Verstappen early on.

Both Ferraris lost position to Verstappen in the opening stint but, on the hard tyre, the red cars seemed to be a much more compelling prospect. This allowed them to reel the Dutchman in and put the moves on him; Sainz got through on lap 41, while Leclerc moved past on lap 46.

Max Verstappen, Red Bull Racing RB20, Charles Leclerc, Ferrari SF-24

Photo by: Andy Hone / Motorsport Images

Verstappen did not fight the Ferrari duo too hard, knowing that finishing ahead of Norris would be enough to clinch a fourth title; the McLaren driver’s struggles with graining on the hard tyre however rendered him an inert threat.

Norris did collect the fastest lap of the race with a late stop for soft tyres, having maintained a big enough gap over team-mate Piastri to make the stop without losing position.

Piastri finished seventh over Nico Hulkenberg, who clinched an important quartet of points for Haas to move the squad back ahead of Alpine in the constructors’ championship – helped by third-place starter Pierre Gasly’s retirement from a suspected engine failure.

RB kept itself in the mix for sixth in the standings through Tsunoda’s ninth place as he held off Sergio Perez, who clinched the final point over Fernando Alonso.