Russell dominates in Las Vegas as Verstappen clinches fourth title

Max Verstappen has won a fourth consecutive world championship after finishing fifth at the Las Vegas Grand Prix, won by a rampaging George Russell in a shock Mercedes one-two finish. Russell aced his start from pole position to fend off the Ferrari drivers at the first turn, with Charles Leclerc jumping from fourth to second beneath Pierre Gasly and Carlos Sainz to emerge as the Briton’s closest challenger. The Monegasque wasted no time challenging for what had been expected to be a straightforward Ferrari victory. By lap 3 he was battling Russell side-by-side into the final chicane and then through the final sector before being forced to concede from the outside line into the first corner. A Leclerc lead appeared inevitable, but his duel with Russell had been toxic to his tires. Almost immediately his Pirelli rubber began to grain, and his pace rapidly devolved to almost 2s slower than Russell’s headline pace. Sainz passed him easily, and Max Verstappen, up from fifth on the grid, made easy work of Leclerc too, the Red Bull driver emerging as an unexpected leader after a weekend of struggle, leaving vanquished title rival Norris in his dust. The Ferrari drivers made early pit stops to move onto the favored hard tire, leaving Verstappen and Russell to size each other up in the battle for the lead, with 6.3s between them after their first pit stops. There was no real competition, however. Despite expectations the Mercedes car wouldn’t have the race pace to got he distance, Russell never wilted in the lead. His pace was strong and consistent, and by lap 17 he had more than 10s on Verstappen, his victory all but assured. Verstappen’s focus instead had to turn to behind, where Lewis Hamilton was exhibiting similarly sizzling pace despite starting 10th. Hamilton made up no places off the line but rose into the lead as the frontrunners made their pit stops, giving him a chance to exercise his car’s virtues. His pit stop dropped him to net sixth behind Norris and within easy reaching distance of the podium. Norris, who struggled badly with graining all weekend, was no match for Hamilton, and both Ferrari drivers came quickly into view afterwards as well. Ferrari was caught in a strategic bind, unsure whether the race would unfold with one stop or two. By the time the team realized that one set of hard tires wouldn’t make it to the end, Hamilton was within undercut range, Mercedes pulling the trigger on lap 27. Sainz and Leclerc followed him on subsequent laps, but it did them no good, the place lost to the rapid Mercedes. Only Verstappen stood in Hamilton’s way of a Mercedes one-two, though the Dutchman was circumspect about his mission. Needing only to finish ahead of Norris to seal the championship, he put up no real fight ahead of his faster 2021 title rival on lap 31. Russell made his final pit stop on the next lap but easily held the lead, and though Hamilton closed quickly on him, his margin was too large to be overcome, and he took the checkered flag a 7.3s victor. “It’s been a dream of a weekend,” he said. “I don’t know how we’ve been so quick, but I’m just riding this wave right now. “To get a victory here, pole position, a dominant weekend, one-two with Lewis as well – we couldn’t have chosen a better place to make this happen.” Hamilton said on Friday night that his botched qualifying performance that left him 10th on the grid killed any hope of winning the race, but he was enthused by his comeback on a rare strong night for Mercedes. “If I’d done my job yesterday, it would’ve been a breeze today,” he said. “But it’s okay. I had fun coming from 10th. “The team did a fantastic job. We don’t know why we were so quick this weekend, but that’s the best the car’s ever felt, so I’m grateful to have been a part of it.” Verstappen’s control of the podium slipped away as the race wore on, with Ferrari finally finding its expected groove late in the final stint. Again he was only minimally defensive, with Norris almost 20s further back in sixth. Sainz scythed onto the podium down the back straight with DRS on lap 41, while Leclerc made it a Ferrari three-four with three laps remaining. “It was a bit of a shock,” Sainz said of his car’s lack of pace. “The mediums I was expecting to be quite strong on, but they lasted eight or nine laps. From then onwards it was just a damage limitation race. “I was not comfortable with the car, not strong today. “We just simply didn’t have it in ourselves today. We came back with P3, a podium that’s not enough for what we expected but the maximum that we could achieve today.” The moves left Verstappen fifth, but with Norris in a distant sixth behind him, it was all he needed to seal his fourth consecutive world championship. “Oh my god, what a season!” he exclaimed over radio. “Thank you, guys.” “It’s been a long season,” he said. “Of course we started off amazing, it was almost like a cruise, but then we had a tough run but as a team we kept it together, we kept working on improvements, and we pulled over the line. “I’m incredibly proud of everyone, what they’ve done for me, “Standing here as a four-time world champion of course is something that I never thought was possible. At the moment I’m just feeling relieved in a way but also very proud.” Norris made a late pit stop for fresh tires to pinch the bonus point for fastest lap on the final tour, reducing the damage done to McLaren’s constructors title lead to maintain a 24-point advantage over Ferrari. Teammate Oscar Piastri followed him home in seventh ahead of Nico Hulkenberg, whose four points moved Haas back up to sixth in the constructors championship ahead of Alpine, which ended the day scoreless after third-place starter Pierre Gasly retired with a power unit problem. Yuki Tsunoda and Sergio Perez finished in the final points-paying places.