The Red Bull megastar won his first Grand Prix at the age of 18. PETER COSTER reports on what at 27 is his fourth world title.
Max Verstappen joined the greatest of F1’s drivers at Las Vegas when he became world champion for the fourth successive year.
The Red Bull champion didn’t win the race, he finished fifth, but ahead of McLaren’s Lando Norris, which was enough to give him the title before the last two races in Qatar and Abu Dhabi.
The Dutch wunderkind now sits alongside Juan Manuel Fangio Alain Prost, Sebastian Vettel, Michael Schumacher and Lewis Hamilton as drivers who have won four or more titles.
Ayrton Senna, Niki Lauda, Nelson Piquet and Jack Brabham won three times.
Will he be the greatest of them all?
Suffice to say the Dutchman, who won his first race in Formula One at the age of 18, he is now 27, is the greatest driver of his generation.
Before the Vegas race, Verstappen overwhelmed those who could only watch in Brazil, including those he passed after starting 17th on the grid.
It may have been his greatest race, in blinding rain. The wet sorts the greatest from the merely elite.
In Las Vegas, Verstappen did what he had to do, finish ahead of Norris to win the title in a car that could not match the race pace of the Mercedes and Ferraris.
The result was an an unexpected Mercedes one-two, with George Russell and Lewis Hamilton finishing ahead of Ferrari’s Carlos Sainz and Charles Leclerc.
The fifth-placed Norris was always going to struggle to overtake Verstappen, if not at Las Vegas then in the remaining two races this year.
George Russell was on pole and never headed in the race to the flag, waved enthusiastically by Sylvester Stallone in front of a crowd of celebrities.
It was all part of the show at the world’s gambling capital in the city that never sleeps.
In Brazil, before the circus moved to Las Vegas, Lewis Hamilton failed to move out of the first qualifying session, so depressed he apologised to the team for what might have been his last race.
“I didn’t really want to come back,” said the seven-times world champion, who declared the car “undriveable.”
At Las Vegas, Hamilton, who leaves for a seat at Ferrari next year alongside Leclerc, the turnaround was as mystifying for Hamilton as those watching.
He declared he could have won the race had he not started 10th on the grid after another disappointing run in qualifying.
George Russell in the leading Mercedes was always looking a winner and announced he wasn’t leaving Las Vegas on his private jet.
He was staying on to party, as was Mercedes chief Toto Wolff who must have been as surprised by the result as his two drivers.
As this season nears its end, the speculation continues about the driver line-ups for next year.
Even the return of Daniel Ricciardo is not as “crazy” as it has been described by some pundits.
But can this be possible after the eight-times race winner was sacked from the Red Bull junior team after the Singapore Grand Prix.
Actually, it was decided before the race, but Ricciardo didn’t want anyone to know.
The apparently final humiliation followed his sacking form McLaren to make way from fellow Aussie driver Oscar Piastri and the former Red Bull star’s inability to out perform teammate Yuki Tsunoda at Visa Cash RB.
The years change drivers, sometimes so subtly they cannot see it.
The focus of F1 teams has shifted to an emerging group of younger drivers.
Max Verstappen’s Red Bull teammate in Sergio Perez is also likely to lose his seat next year in favour of a younger driver, possibly 23-year-old New Zealander Liam Lawson, who replaced Ricciardo at Visa RB when Ricciardo broke a hand in practice for the Dutch Grand Prix at Zandvoort last year. Ricciardo is 12 years older at 35.
Ironically, that crash was caused as he tried to avoid crashing into Oscar Piastri who replaced him in the McLaren. Piastri is 23.
So, expect Perez at 34 to be thrown out of his seat at Red Bull next year, in spite of having another year on his contract.
The Mexican driver’s continuing lack of form has seen Red Bull lose its lead in the constructors’ championship and potentially the $150 million it would bring to the team after Abu Dhabi.
Red Bull is now behind McLaren and Ferrari and the finger points to Perez.
Perez’s potential loss of sponsorship dollars from billionaire backer Carlos Slim through Mexican communications company Telmex, which he controls, is also seen as a factor in Perez losing his seat.
Perez made his sixth first qualy exit on the dusty, wind-swept street circuit in Las Vegas. He finished 10th in the race.
The 34-year-old Mexican is a better driver than his lack of performance suggests. He has won six races with Red Ball and was runner-up in the drivers’ championship last year.
As with Ricciardo, it all seems to late to turn around.
Of all the rumoured moves in F1, Carlos Sainz, who was forced to make way for Lewis Hamilton at Ferrari next year, is a somehow a winner and a loser.
The Spaniard, who turned 30 in September, finally signed with mid-field team, Williams, when there was a decided lack of interest from the front runners. Yet his last win was in Mexico only two races ago.
Sainz will run alongside Alex Albon whose teammate after the team sacked American driver Logan Sargeant has been Argentine sensation Franco Colapinto.
He, too, has been crashing their cars and was the only driver to find the wall during qualifying at Vegas.
It became the fifth time the team has had to rebuild one of its cars this season.
Colapinto and Albon crashed at the previous race in Brazil, costing the team $20 million they can ill afford, added to the tens of millions they have had to pay to get Sainz into a seat.
Colapinto is only 21 and still a saleable commodity having attracted interest from Red Bull as a teammate to Verstappen. Williams could sell him off.
Surprisingly, one driver out of contract for next year is Visa RB driver Yuki Tsunoda, who proved his worth against Ricciardo and finished ninth and in the points at Las Vegas. The Japanese driver is 24.
The next race, at Qatar, is on December 1 and the final race at Abu Dhabi on December 8.
Next year sees Melbourne return with the opening race of the season, on March 16 at Albert Park.
Not so much a case of who will be on the grid but who will be off.
Results of the 2024 Las Vegas Grand Prix
| Pos | Driver | Car | Time/retired |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | George Russell | Mercedes | 1:22:05.969 |
| 2 | Lewis Hamilton | Mercedes | +7.313s |
| 3 | Carlos Sainz | Ferrari | +11.906s |
| 4 | Charles Leclerc | Ferrari | +14.283s |
| 5 | Max Verstappen | Red Bull Racing Honda RBPT | +16.582s |
| 6 | Lando Norris | McLaren Mercedes | +43.385s |
| 7 | Oscar Piastri | McLaren Mercedes | +51.365s |
| 8 | Nico Hulkenberg | Haas Ferrari | +59.808s |
| 9 | Yuki Tsunoda | RB Honda RBPT | +62.808s |
| 10 | Sergio Perez | Red Bull Racing Honda RBPT | +63.114s |
| 11 | Fernando Alonso | Aston Martin Aramco Mercedes | +69.195s |
| 12 | Kevin Magnussen | Haas Ferrari | +69.803s |
| 13 | Zhou Guanyu | Kick Sauber Ferrari | +74.085s |
| 14 | Franco Colapinto | Williams Mercedes | +75.172s |
| 15 | Lance Stroll | Aston Martin Aramco Mercedes | +84.102s |
| 16 | Liam Lawson | RB Honda RBPT | +91.005s |
| 17 | Esteban Ocon | Alpine Renault | +1 lap |
| 18 | Valtteri Bottas | Kick Sauber Ferrari | +1 lap |
| NC | Alexander Albon | Williams Mercedes | DNF |
| NC | Pierre Gasly | Alpine Renault | DNF |
PETER COSTER is a former editor and foreign correspondent who has covered a range of international sports, including world championship fights and the Olympic Games.
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