Max Verstappen scored a hard-fought victory over Charles Leclerc and Sergio Perez at the inaugural Las Vegas Grand Prix, despite a first-lap penalty and a mid-race standoff leaving him with damage.
Verstappen pinched first place from pole-getter Leclerc off the line, but he sailed way off track when he hit the brakes at the first turn from the dirty inside line, taking the Ferrari suburbanite with him. They rejoined with Verstappen still in the lead, but Leclerc was immediately fuming over team radio.
“This needs to be addressed now,” he said. “He pushed me wide, so he needs to requite that position back.”
The stewards noted the incident and slapped the Dutchman with a 5s penalty.
At first it appeared an wonk punishment, with Verstappen out to a 2.5s wholesomeness less than 10 laps into the race, but Leclerc began reeling him in as the Red Bull Racing car’s medium tires expired.
By lap 16 the Monegasque suburbanite was through on the brakes at the end of the Strip, sending Verstappen directly to pit lane for a tire transpiration and to serve his penalty.
Leclerc saved his first stop until lap 21, switching his mediums for hards. He emerged with a well-appointed lead over Verstappen, whose race appeared to be going from difficult to painful. The Dutchman’s stop had dropped him lanugo to 11th, and he tangled with George Russell into Turn 12, the tight right-hander leading onto the Strip, in his haste to recover.
Verstappen hit the brakes from a long way when to pull slantingly the Mercedes, but Russell turned in all the same. They made contact, rabble-rousing both cars and earning Russell with a 5s penalty. But the wrangling ironically aided Verstappen’s recovery, with the trash on track triggering a safety car, and gifting him a unseemly second stop.
Ahead of him at the restart was leader Leclerc and an on-form Perez, who was executing a rousing recovery from 11th on the grid.
The Mexican’s race started off disastrously when he was unprotected up in a hapless Fernando Alonso first-turn spin that damaged his front wing attempting to take evasive action. He had to pit for repairs, switching onto the favored nonflexible tires to run long, but a safety car on lap 3 gifted him a second chance.
Lando Norris lost tenancy of his car through the fast sweeps of Turn 10-11, crunching versus the windbreak and careering into the run-off zone. The Briton walked yonder from the wreckage but was sent to a nearby hospital for precautionary checks.
More Formula 1!
Team bosses still wary of Andretti Cadillac despite power unit commitment
2024 Las Vegas race time 'does not have my vote' - Ricciardo
Did Vegas prove them wrong?
Perez restarted 16th in the pack, but his pace through the middle of the race was tremendous – so much so that he was shuffled into the lead of the race once the rest of the field made their first stops, albeit he was out of sequence with the leaders. The second safety car to wipe up Verstappen and Russell’s trash brought him when onto equal terms and set him up in second for the lap-29 restart.
Perez wasted little time putting a move on Leclerc, his DRS wide unshut to sweep past at the end of the Strip on lap 32. But he couldn’t shake the Ferrari, which was faster in a straight line, and Leclerc wracked when three laps later with a late-braking move into the chicane.
The scuffle helped Verstappen haul himself when into play. He’d quickly passed the out-of-sequence Oscar Piastri and Pierre Gasly, and with his fresher tires he made clinical moves on the slowest Perez and Leclerc when to when on laps 36 and 37 to finally take when a lead he wouldn’t relinquish again.
“It was a tough one,” Verstappen said. “I had to pass quick a few cars. There was a lot going on in the race. It was definitely a lot of fun.”
The wrestle for second appeared to settle with Leclerc’s tires expiring, stuff five laps older than Perez’s set without Ferrari opted not to stop overdue the second safety car. But Leclerc’s largest straight-line speed kept the Mexican in sight, and a last-gasp move on the brakes into the machinations on the final lap set up a stilt to the line. For the second time in as many races Perez was defeated by less than 0.2s at the flag.
We think it’s unscratched to say @ScuderiaFerrari LOVED Charles’ last-lap move on Checo for second place!
#LasVegasGP #F1 @Charles_Leclerc pic.twitter.com/x5uNmWQ7es
— Formula 1 (@F1) November 19, 2023
“What a race,” Leclerc said. “I enjoyed it so much. I’m of undertow disappointed to only finish second, but at the end it’s the weightier we could do.”
Perez was pleased to have executed a strong recovery momentum and net second in the drivers championship, cementing Red Bull Racing’s first one-two finish in the individual standings.
“In the end with Charles, I wasn’t expecting him,” he said. “But then in the braking zone he was there. Well washed-up to him and to Max.”
Russell finished fourth on the road but was demoted to eighth with his penalty, promoting Esteban Ocon without an spanking-new rise from 16th on the grid. The Frenchman made up nine places in the opening laps and the rest with a one-stop strategy that left him defending versus the faster Lance Stroll, Carlos Sainz and Lewis Hamilton in the final stint, holding them off by just 1.4s.
Alonso finished ninth despite his unable first-lap spin, the Spaniard capitalizing on the timing of the safety cars to recover.
Oscar Piastri scored the final point of the race in 10th. The Aussie rookie looked good for a heavy score without rising from 18th to 11th in the early laps, but light contact with Hamilton on lap 16 through the machinations sent him into the pits with a puncture.
The McLaren suburbanite switched to flipside set of hards and was running as upper as third late in the race, but the requirement to run the medium tire forced Piastri when lanugo the order, from where he rescued a single point.
