Christian Horner: "This marks the culmination of an epic campaign and a fantastic win for Max. Not just today but throughout an uncompromising year and at times without the necessary tools at his disposal. He has inspired in the cockpit but out of it also. The way he has conducted himself and the way he has worked with the engineers and wider team has been phenomenal.
"Together with 2021, this was one of the toughest years the Team have experienced. But Max has once again elevated himself to another level of exceptionalism. He's won more than double the races of any other driver, mounting a formidable campaign and at times having to overcome insurmountable margins. On the days when we didn't deliver a win or when he had everything thrown at him, he has still delivered points. He has been extraordinary.
"Behind the scenes there was a huge effort to help bring this championship over the line. It is something to celebrate here at track but equally back at the factory. I am incredibly grateful for all the work and late nights that went into this success and everyone back in Milton Keynes can be proud of their hand in this championship.
"Ultimately though, this win belongs to Max. Congratulations on number four Max, you deserve every moment of it!"
George Russell led home a Mercedes 1-2 as the team dominated on Saturday evening in Las Vegas. Lewis Hamilton drove his own incredible race, scything through the field from P10 to take P2.
Tyre management and delaying any graining in the cold night conditions of the desert was the key to the Grand Prix.
Both drivers ran a two-stop race, starting on the Medium compound before switching to the Hard tyre for the remainder of the race. After seeing off initial pressure from Charles Leclerc, George drove a controlled race to take the chequered flag seven seconds ahead of Lewis. Lewis meanwhile made early progress before unleashing his superior speed in the middle stint, undercutting both Ferraris before overtaking the Red Bull of Max Verstappen for P2.
The result means Mercedes becomes the second marque in F1 history to reach 60 1-2 finishes, following Ferrari. George took his third victory in the sport, following on from the 2022 São Paulo Grand Prix and the 2024 Austrian Grand Prix.
Max Verstappen meanwhile claimed the 2024 World Drivers' Championship as he came home P5 - congratulations go to him from the team as he takes his fourth title.
The team returns to action next week in Qatar for the penultimate race of the season.
Toto Wolff, Team Principal & CEO: It has been a while since we took a 1-2 so this is a fantastic result for the team. The colder conditions on a low grip circuit such as this clearly suited us. Nevertheless, everyone did a great job to execute well across the weekend. We have been quick from the start of FP1 on Thursday and continued that into Friday and Saturday. We got the car in a great window and that is really pleasing.
George managed the race superbly. He held off the Ferrari of Charles Leclerc early on and from there was in complete command of the Grand Prix. Lewis also drove fantastically to cut his way through the field from P10 to P2. He showed just how quick he is to secure a brilliant result for the team. Finally, congratulations to Max Verstappen on winning the title; he is a deserving champion, and we hope to take the fight to him next year.
Andrew Shovlin, Trackside Engineering Director: We didn't come to Las Vegas thinking that this track would suit us, so it's been great to see the car working so well. We've been quick from lap one of practice on Thursday. We knew from those sessions that the single lap would be strong, but it was very encouraging to see the race pace today.
George did an amazing job managing from the front, covering off safety car risks and making sure he kept his tyres in better shape than the cars behind. It was another well-deserved win and the third of his F1 career. Lewis meanwhile outperformed all our simulations today to achieve P2. His final stint was immense; he'll be frustrated that he lost too much time in traffic to allow him to fight for the win but the 1-2 is of course a great result for the team. We now have two races to go in the season. We will be giving it everything we can to achieve similar success in Qatar and Abu Dhabi.
Scuderia Ferrari HP picked up plenty of points and had one driver on the podium in the Las Vegas Grand Prix courtesy of Carlos Sainz, who crossed the line third ahead of Charles Leclerc. The race was far from perfect but nevertheless the team has made up 12 points on McLaren, closing the gap to the Constructors' championship leaders to 24. The laps run on the Medium tyres in the first stint weighed heavily on the team's performance as the SF-24 struggled more than its rivals with graining. But it was clear that today Mercedes was clearly quicker than the rest. Today, Ferrari was the second best team and that was reflected in the result.
George Russell kept the lead at the start, with Charles getting off the line very well from fourth spot to move up to second going into turn 1, passing Pierre Gasly as well as his team-mate Carlos. In the opening laps, Leclerc tried to pass the leader, but was unable to do so and, having pushed hard, he found his Medium tyres were struggling and their performance dropped dramatically, forcing him to pit early on lap 9 to switch to Hards, rejoining in 16th place. Carlos soon followed to get rid of the Mediums, switching to Hards and also moving up the order. It soon became clear that a one-stop strategy would not work on the Las Vegas track and as the race went on, the SF-24s performance improved more and more after the Hards had also suffered with graining on their first stint. There was also a misunderstanding between team and driver at the moment of Carlos' second stop and he had to go round for one more lap, losing time and a position on track to Lewis Hamilton. Even without that error, it would have been difficult to keep the Englishman behind as his car had such a pace advantage over the rest of the field. After their second stops, the Ferraris showed good pace and consistency and were thus able to close on Max Verstappen who was then third. Both Carlos and Charles overtook the Dutchman to claim third and fourth places, while Verstappen's fifth place was still enough to secure him the Drivers' title. The positions then remained the same to the chequered flag.
The season continues immediately with the teams now packing their bags and heading off on the long flight to Qatar, for the penultimate round of the season. It's a Sprint weekend, which means there are 59 Constructors' championship points up for grabs.
Fred Vasseur: First of all, congratulation to Max Verstappen on winning the title. As for our race, we struggled a lot in the first stint on the Mediums, losing about two seconds per lap towards the end and again at the end of the second stint, the first one on the Hards. Overall, our pace on the Hards was decent, but we lost too much time in the early stages and generally our pace was a bit too inconsistent.
In the end today's race was a case of damage limitation, but at some point we have to score more points than everyone else and we cannot just settle for this damage limitation if we want to keep the fight open. We scored 12 points more than McLaren and 16 more than Red Bull. Let's see what we can do next week in Qatar, a track that on paper does not suit us best, but in which there is a Sprint and so even more points on offer. As a team, we need to do a better job at the next race.
Formula 1 now heads to the Middle East for the final rush of the season. Next weekend it's time for the Qatar Grand Prix, at the Lusail circuit, followed a week later by the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix at the Yas Marina track. All five compounds will come into play over these two final Grands Prix: Qatar will feature the three hardest compounds in the range - C1, C2 and C3, while the C3, C4 and C5 will be on duty in the United Arab Emirates. Both events also feature the last two rounds of the FIA Formula 2 and F1 Academy championships.
Andrea Stella - Team Principal : "Before anything else, I'd like to express personally, and on behalf of our team, congratulations to Max Verstappen. Four-time World Champion, one of the greatest in the history of the sport. He thoroughly deserves this title, he was incredibly consistent, even when his car wasn't the best. Max and Red Bull Racing overall as a team supporting him have done a superb job. Well done to them.
"For our part, we can be proud that we've given Max something to think about and taken the title race this deep into the season. I think we lost too many points at the start of the year, when we were not competitive enough. Once the car improved, I think we've proven we have the qualities as a team, and the qualities in Lando and Oscar, to contend for both titles.
"Tonight, we can't be happy with the result, because we go racing to finish on the podium, and we go racing to win. We had some headaches with car and tyre performance, and we'll be doing a lot of analysis between here and Lusail. Considering the weekend we've had, I think we were able to limit the damage this evening. Qatar and Abu Dhabi should be more suitable ground for the MCL38 - but there are four teams in contention for victory all of the time. That's great for Formula 1, but it means we have to be performing at our absolute best if we are to win the Constructors' Championship. Not very long ago, the notion that we would be in contention for the title would have been incredible, unthinkable - but now it's realistic and we have to finish the job."
Mike Krack, Team Principal: "We performed a bit better than we expected this evening in Las Vegas, but there was no reward for our efforts as Fernando just missed out on the final point after a strong performance. Almost everyone pitted twice, but we went quite aggressive with Fernando's strategy [starting on the Soft] and in the end he ran out of tyre life [on the Hard tyres]. This left him defenceless against [Sergio] Perez in the closing laps.
"Lance's race was more complicated because we had no radio communications with him for the entire race. It resulted in a big loss of time when he pitted on lap nine because there was no way for Lance to give prior warning that he was coming in. We had to manage the race via the pit board and couldn't recover the lost time. Even without the radio, Lance did a good job with tyre management and drove a strong race.
"We send our congratulations to Max [Verstappen] for his success this year and for securing his fourth world title this evening. Our attention now turns to Qatar next weekend - a totally different challenge in terms of layout and temperatures. We will keep positive, put this week's learning to good use, and try to come back stronger."
Oliver Oakes, Team Principal: "It's not the outcome we were hoping for today. A Power Unit issue brought an early end to Pierre's race. With Esteban, a mistake with his first stop meant he had to stop twice. We need to put this weekend behind us. The pace we showed yesterday, and in the race, underlines the positive improvements we have made in recent weeks and gives us reason to be optimistic heading into the final two races. Also, well done to Max [Verstappen] for winning the Championship for a fourth time - an amazing achievement."
Sven Smeets, Sporting Director: Firstly, it was a fantastic job by the team in the garage again to get Franco's car ready to race and I want to thank each and every one of them for their determination and hard work. Both cars were running well at the start of the race but frustratingly we had to retire Alex's car, despite points being on the table. We will go away and investigate what caused the PU problem.
Franco put in a decent recovery drive, but we couldn't make it into the top 10 having started from the pit lane. We now look forward to Qatar where the Sprint format will give us two chances to score points.
Guillaume Dezoteux (Head of Vehicle Performance): "Yuki drove a solid race and brought home 2 points which could prove to be vital in our battle in the Constructors' championship. Looking back at how the weekend started, with a difficult car balance and tyre degradation, we can be satisfied with the progress made. The race was about finding the right approach for managing the tyres and getting the strategy right, and we did that. Once more, we had great pit-stops and Yuki overtook Gasly in the pits which is a fantastic reward for the mechanics and for the team. Liam had a difficult race. He has been struggling more with the car balance and the tyre grip which is something we need to understand better in the coming days."
Laurent Mekies (Team Principal): "First of all, congratulations to Max Verstappen and our friends at Oracle Red Bull Racing on an incredible achievement in winning yet another Drivers' championship. Overall, the team and the drivers executed another strong weekend here in Las Vegas. After a very solid qualifying performance to start P7, Yuki had a busy race, with some great overtaking moves, battling with our rivals all race long. Of course, it is frustrating to lose a place with just 5 laps to go, but overall he showed a good race pace in bringing home two very important championship points. It was a more difficult weekend for Liam and his car was certainly very tricky to drive around here, something which we still need to understand fully. He showed good pace at some stages of the race today but having qualified further back he spent a lot of time in traffic. It is incredibly tight in the Constructors championship battle, and fight is only going to ramp up even more over the last two rounds of the season in the Middle East, starting in Qatar in a few days' time. Finally, well done to the promoter for a very special Grand Prix week here in Vegas, with an incredible atmosphere on and off the track at an event that epitomises the new style of Formula 1."
Stake F1 Team KICK Sauber fought well within the midfield at the Las Vegas Grand Prix, with Zhou Guanyu running in the top ten for long parts of the race before finishing in 13th position. Team-mate, Valtteri Bottas, started from the back due to a penalty and played the team game on his way to 18th place at the chequered flag.
The team will aim to build on the progress of the last couple of rounds to finish the season strongly in the remaining races in Qatar and Abu Dhabi.
Alessandro Alunni Bravi, Team Representative: "We can be reasonably satisfied with today's race pace. Zhou battled in the midfield with our direct competitors throughout the evening, fighting until the last lap to secure P13. We switched both cars to a two-stop strategy to try to limit tyre graining and maintain performance. Valtteri's race was much more difficult: starting last on the grid, we knew that he'd be up against it without any Safety Car. He went through the first part of the race on hard tyres, then had a very good last stint but, unfortunately, as soon as he got lapped by the leading cars, there was no more chance for him to recover positions. All in all, this weekend showed qualifying improvements, and we saw Zhou's return to strong racing form. We have two races ahead of us to build on these improvements, and we will need to give everything - we won't be giving up."
MoneyGram Haas F1 Team finished with Nico Hulkenberg eighth and Kevin Magnussen 12th, at the Las Vegas Grand Prix, Round 22 of the 2024 FIA Formula 1 World Championship, held Saturday night at the Las Vegas Strip Circuit.
Hulkenberg started from ninth place on the grid on Pirelli P Zero Yellow medium tires, and gained a spot early on to hold eighth, before being overhauled by the recovering Oscar Piastri and a fast-charging Lewis Hamilton. Hulkenberg came in for White hard tires on lap 14 and gradually cycled through the traffic, before making a second stop on lap 33, also for hard rubber. The German re-emerged in 12th position but slotted into the top 10, before chasing down RB's Yuki Tsunoda in the closing stages. Hulkenberg carved his way past Tsunoda on lap 44 to move into eighth spot, a position he retained through to the checkered flag.
Magnussen took the start from 12th place, also on medium tires, but dropped down to 15th amid the jostling in the midfield. The Dane ran slightly longer than most rivals, coming in for hard tires on lap 17, and ran a one-stop strategy, the only driver in the field to do so. Magnussen then retained 12th through to the finish.
MoneyGram Haas F1 Team moves back up to sixth position in the Constructors' Championship, on 50 points - one point ahead of seventh-placed Alpine (49), and four ahead of RB in eighth (46).
Ayao Komatsu, Team Principal: "I think that's the best P8 we've ever achieved. It wasn't an easy race to manage, but what I'm so happy about is that nobody panicked, and everyone stayed calm. Everyone, including the team back at the factory, did their bit, and to have that strong two-stop race with Nico to get P8 is great. With Kevin, after the first lap was losing position etc. the only way we could get him back into the game was one-stop. His team did as well as they could in that scenario, nearly getting back to P10. I think it was a huge team effort, and back up into P6 in the Constructors'. After that terrible result in Brazil, it's been an amazing reaction, and it gives people confidence, so I couldn't be happier."
The fourth Formula 1 race to be held in Las Vegas ended in triumph for Mercedes who secured a one-two finish courtesy of George Russell and Lewis Hamilton. It also saw Max Verstappen crowned Drivers' World Champion for a fourth consecutive time, after finishing fifth today. Having finished sixth, Lando Norris can no longer catch the Dutchman, with two rounds remaining.
This was Russell's third win from 126 Grand Prix starts, his second of the season after the first in Spielberg. Mercedes topped every session this weekend on the way to their 60th one-two finish, the last one dating back to Brazil two years ago, again with Russell winning from Hamilton.
With four titles, Verstappen now joins, Sebastian Vettel and Alain Prost in fourth place on the all-time championship winners list, which is headed by Lewis Hamilton and Michael Schumacher on seven titles apiece, followed by Juan-Manuel Fangio on five. Strangely, this is the second time Max has won the title on a Saturday, having won it last year after the Sprint race in Lusail. It is Red Bull's eighth Drivers' title, all under the leadership of Christian Horner, in charge since its maiden season in 2005. The team is fourth in this particular category behind Ferrari (15), McLaren (12) and Mercedes (9).
Temperatures were slightly higher for the race, both ambient and track, compared to the previous days at 18/17 °C. On the grid, the vast majority of drivers opted to start on the Medium. There were four who chose otherwise: Alonso on Softs, Perez, Bottas and Colapinto, the latter starting from pit lane, on Hards. Almost all drivers made two stops, preferring to get the most out of the tyres, especially the two sets of Hards they had kept for the race, rather than trying to manage them, especially in the first stint.
As is so often the case, the laurels for the longest stints went to three specialists in this discipline, Kevin Magnussen and Esteban Ocon both completing 33 laps on the Hard, while Valtteri Bottas did 18 with the Medium.
Mario Isola: "First of all, congratulations to Max Verstappen on his fourth world title, an incredible achievement for a youngster who has only recently turned 27. Well done too to Red Bull, as this is the eighth time one of their drivers has been crowned champion. After the start of this season seemed to be following the same pattern as last year's, Max had a tough time of it, but fought hard race after race, even though he did not have the most competitive package, proving to be an extraordinary champion.
"Congratulations must also go to Formula 1 for having put on an amazing event here in Las Vegas, full of sights and sounds and above all, a great show on track which definitely proved popular with the crowd of over 300,000 spectators who came to the track over the weekend and the millions watching on television and on-line.
"As for tyre performance, it was not a particularly clear cut Grand Prix, starting with the strategy choices. Prior to the race, the one-stop was clearly the quickest option but in the end, almost all the drivers pitted twice, if we leave out Norris who made an additional stop to go for the point for setting the fastest race lap and Ocon, who preferred not to take any risks at the end. From an initial analysis of the data, this was due mainly to the fact that several drivers chose to push hard right from the start without giving too much thought to tyre management. As a consequence, some of them therefore suffered more than expected with graining and were forced to make their first pit stop earlier than planned, which triggered a chain reaction which bit by bit pushed everyone towards a two-stop, especially as they knew they could count on two sets of Hard tyres, which was without a doubt the most competitive compound for the race.
"On average, the level of performance degradation was relatively low on both the Medium and the Hard, and so too was wear. Clearly some drivers suffered with degradation more than others, especially on the C4, but a one-stop was still doable if the tyres were managed carefully. The result was an action-packed Grand Prix with plenty of overtaking and wheel-to-wheel battles which was great for all the fans of this wonderful sport."
