Saturday night was all right for Max Verstappen.
The Red Bull racer finished in fifth place at the Las Vegas Grand Prix and it was enough to capture his fourth consecutive Formula 1 World Championship.
He needed to finish ahead of McLaren’s Lando Norris to pick up the title win and did just that. Norris was in sixth place.
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It was far from the easiest weekend for Verstappen. Red Bull made a mistake adjusting his rear wing and data showed his vehicle was running slower than Mercedes drivers George Russell and Lewis Hamilton on the straightaways. While Russell captured the pole, Verstappen was able to get enough out of the car to start in fifth. He only needed to score three more points than Norris to clinch the world championship. Norris qualified sixth.
Mercedes was clearly quicker. Russell won the race. It was his second win of the season. Hamilton finished right behind him while Ferrari’s Carlos Sainz picked up a podium spot in third place.
Verstappen tied Sebastian Vettel, Juan Manuel Fangio and Hamilton with four consecutive titles. Michael Schumacher won five straight from 2000 to 2004.
Schumacher and Hamilton each have the most world titles with seven in total. Fangio has five and Verstappen is tied with Vettel and Alain Prost with four.
Las Vegas Grand Prix racers had to battle a weekend of cold weather and the wind. Drivers were slipping and sliding all over the place through the first three practices. But picked up the pace in qualifying with the only mistake coming from Franco Colapinto, who suffered a crash in Q2.
Aside from Pierre Gasly’s disappointing night on Saturday, the race was run clean.
The F1 schedule still has two races on its docket, the Qatar Grand Prix and Abu Dhabi Grand Prix with the constructors’ championship up for grabs.
Ferrari drivers Sainz and Charles Leclerc finished third and fourth, with McLaren’s Norris and Oscar Piastri finishing sixth and seventh.
McLaren entered the weekend 36 points ahead of Ferrari in the constructors’ standings. After the Las Vegas result, McLaren will be up 24 points going into Qatar (608 points to Ferrari’s 584).
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