F1 Las Vegas Grand Prix 2024 Review: George Russell win in Vegas while Verstappen steals the spotlight with fourth world title

Verstappen picks up fourth title

George Russell converted his stunning pole lap from Saturday into a win as the Mercedes driver took the win under the lights in Las Vegas but the bigger story was that reigning world champion Max Verstappen finished fifth ahead of championship contender Lando Norris, which meant that Max Verstappen secured his fourth world title.

Russell led home a Mercedes 1-2, with seven-time world champion Lewis Hamilton putting in a strong drive to finish on the podium ahead of Carlos Sainz, who saw off his Ferrari teammate Charles Leclerc for the final podium place. Verstappen was fifth ahead of Lando Norris, Oscar Piastri, Nico Hülkenberg, Yuki Tsunoda and Sergio Pérez rounding out the top 10. 

Verstappen joined Sebastian Vettel as Red Bull’s most successful driver with his fourth world title and matched Vettel’s feat, picking up four consecutive titles. He’s also moved into Formula One royalty, joining the likes of Vettel and Alain Prost as four-time champions and only Michael Schumacher (7), Lewis Hamilton (7) and Juan Manuel Fangio (5) have more titles than the Dutchman. 

As the lights had gone off, it was Russell keeping the lead but it was Charles Leclerc zooming to second place, getting past his teammate Carlos Sainz and Pierre Gasly in the opening few corners. Verstappen meanwhile held on to his fifth position with a secure start, keeping his championship rival Lando Norris behind. A couple of laps later, Verstappen picked off Gasly to extend the gap between himself and Norris as he went up to fourth place while Russell was hanging on the lead with Leclerc making sure he didn’t get DRS. 

Russell’s teammate, who had a poor qualifying session, made it into the top 10 by lap 6 and kept moving ahead as he breezed past the Haas of Nico Hülkenberg with Piastri ahead. By lap 10 the first pit stops started as Carlos Sainz was called in by Ferrari and a host of other teams followed suit with Verstappen coming in two laps later and a quick stop saw him come out in front of Sainz, Leclerc and Norris, in second place. Russell, meanwhile ahead, pulled out a 10s gap to Verstappen by lap 16. Further below Leclerc was being pressed by the other Mercedes of Hamilton. 

Carlos Sainz led the second round of pit stops also, coming in on lap 29, and rejoined in sixth place with Verstappen and Hamilton coming in soon and both came out in fourth and fifth place respectively. Hamilton and Mercedes continued to fly as it was strong Sunday for the veteran British driver kept moving up the grid while Russell was controlling a comfortable race up front. There was little to no action towards the final quarter of the race barring the two Ferrari’s overtaking Verstappen with Carlos Sainz moving into the final podium place ahead of his teammate Charles Leclerc. Hamilton meanwhile was putting in a fastest lap one after the other has the lead was under five seconds with five laps to go but Russell held on for the win ahead of his teammate to pick up his second career win.

While Russell’s win should have been the highlight of the evening, it was Red Bull’s Max Verstappen, finishing fifth that grabbed all the headlines as he wrote his name into the history books, picking up his fourth consecutive title. Verstappen also will become only the third driver in Formula One history to pick up the Drivers’ Title but his team won’t finish in the top two in the Constructors’ standing as McLaren and Ferrari are slowly consolidating their places in the standing with McLaren on top with 608 points while Ferrari has 584 and Red Bull sit in third place with 555 with two races to go.

The penultimate race of the season will come in a week’s time as the grid heads to Lusail for the Qatar Grand Prix.