Las Vegas (AFP) – Formula One world champion Max Verstappen produced a masterful drive to win the Las Vegas Grand Prix on Saturday, and his title hopes were boosted further with the McLarens of championship leader Lando Norris and Oscar Piastri both being disqualified. Norris finished the race in second, with Piastri fourth, but the skid blocks on both cars were found after the race to be less than the minimum depth. The disqualifications mean that with two race weekends remaining in Qatar and Abu Dhabi, four-time defending champion Verstappen is now level on points with Piastri in the title race, just 24 points behind Norris. His chances of a fifth successive title, however, will depend on another spectacular slip-up from Norris or his McLaren team.
“It’s frustrating to lose so many points,” said Norris in a McLaren statement. “As a team, we’re always pushing to find as much performance as we can, and we clearly didn’t get that balance right today. Nothing I can do will change that now; instead, full focus switches to Qatar.” McLaren’s team principal Andrea Stella said the problem had been caused by “unexpected, high levels of porpoising,” which had led to “excessive contact” with the ground. “We apologise to Lando and Oscar for the loss of points today, at a critical time in their championship campaigns after two strong performances from them all weekend,” said Stella.
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With a maximum of 58 points available in the final two grands prix, Norris just needs to score two more points than each of his rivals next weekend in Qatar, which includes a sprint, to secure his first title.
Verstappen dominated in Vegas from the moment he pounced on a slip by pole-sitter Norris on the first turn of Sin City’s street circuit to grab the lead. Thereafter, he controlled the race to claim the 69th Grand Prix win of his career, finishing more than 20 seconds clear. The Dutchman said Red Bull’s tyre strategy had laid the foundation for the win. “Normally the race is always a tough one for us. We are not normally that great on tyres, but today it seemed like we were more in control and I could push a little bit more,” he said. “We had a lot more pace, and I could stay out a little bit longer and split the race in half, and that definitely helped a lot. The car was working pretty well, much more to my liking, and at the end it was quite a decent lap. Every lap I was just feeling comfortable and not taking too much out of the tyre.”
Mercedes’ George Russell finished third on the track but was upgraded to second, with his teammate Kimi Antonelli, who finished in fifth, moving up to third. After the drama of Friday’s qualifying, when heavy rain made for a treacherous surface that Verstappen likened to driving on ice, Saturday’s 50-lap race under the glittering lights of Las Vegas got underway in cool, dry conditions. Norris, who had arrived in Vegas fresh from back-to-back wins in Mexico and Sao Paulo, attempted an aggressive move to block Verstappen right from the start. The move backfired, and Norris ran off the track, allowing Verstappen to grab first place. Norris dropped back to third after he was passed by Russell into second.
Piastri, who began in fifth place on the grid, was also ruing a challenging start, which saw him bump wheels with RB’s Liam Lawson. The Australian had been desperately looking to make up ground in Vegas after surrendering a 34-point advantage in the drivers’ championship since his victory at the Dutch Grand Prix in August. The McLarens are not the first team to fall foul of the rules on skid blocks, which are intended to prevent the cars from running too low and gaining extra speed. Russell was disqualified after winning in Belgium last season for the same technical infringement, while Lewis Hamilton has been penalised twice. In 2023, when he was still at Mercedes, Hamilton was disqualified from the US Grand Prix along with Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc, and this season, with new team Ferrari, it happened again after the Chinese Grand Prix in March.
© 2024 AFP
