Race Report: Verstappen wins, McLaren disqualified in Las Vegas

Max Verstappen wins his second Las Vegas GP while both McLaren drivers disqualified bringing Max level with Piastri in the championship. With McLaren’s DSQ, Mercedes scored a double podium with George Russell and Kimi Antonelli in P2 an dP3 respectively.

Win

A win for Max Verstappen and Red Bull for taking the win and doing so by 23s. It was a dominant performance and given the slippery qualifying session, Red Bull were on it all week long. Max drove an impeccable race to make things very interesting in the final two races as he’s just 24 point behind Lando Norris int he championship and tied with Oscar Piastri in second.

A win for Mercedes with terrific drives from both George Russell and Kimi Antonelli. Mercedes does well in Vegas but George was nursing a tire issue and Kimi had a 5s penalty he had to account for but managed to hold off Piastri and Charles Leclerc. McLarens DSQ handed Kimi P3.

A win for Carlos Sainz, Isack Hadjar and Nico Hulkenberg who all put in a terrific race to finish 5th, 6th and 7th respectively. Nico started on Hards and finished on Mediums which was against the grain of the front runners so a great result.

A win for both Haas F1 cars with Esteban Ocon and Ollie Bearman finishing in 9th and 10th respectively. The race in the constructor’s championship is tight and Haas as well as Williams needed the points as did Racing Bulls and all of them scored.

Fail

A big fail for McLaren. The FIA race stewards said that the McLaren’s were “measured and found to be below the minimum thickness of 9mm specified under Article 3.5.9 of the Technical Regulations.”

“The rear skids were re-measured in the presence of the Stewards and the three McLaren representatives, and those measurements confirmed that the skids did not comply with the regulations. The relevant measurements were even lower than those measured originally by the Technical Delegate.”

The FIA said they did not feel McLaren were intentional about the contravention of the rules and McLaren said it was the lack of practice due to rain that caused the issue. One could argue that it was both cars so the team missed the setup ride height needed.

A fail for Gabriel Bortoleto for clouting into the side of Lance Stroll ending both their races. Also a fail for Alex Albon who had a couple of penalties and retired the car in a ragged day at the office.

WTH

Unfortunate to see Pierre Gasly look so quick all weekend long and yet not find the points despite all the attrition on the grid. He got spun on lap one at the first turn and spent the rest of the day trying to recover.

Still not convinced all the pageantry really works with the drivers driven to the Bellagio, Mickey Mouse orchestrating the fountains and all the glitz. I understand all the hard work involved but not sure it is really translating well with the cadence of a race.

Las Vegas GP Results: