McLaren data reveals glaring Max Verstappen fact at Las Vegas GP

Pablo Hidalgo 25 Nov 2024 2:15 PM

Here’s how Max Verstappen got the better of Lando Norris in Las Vegas

Max Verstappen has won his fourth Formula 1 World Championship at the Las Vegas GP. The Red Bull driver once again outshining Lando Norris and McLaren.

The Papaya team went missing in qualifying, and in the race the situation did not improve and they could not prevent the Dutch driver from celebrating in Nevada at any point.

Verstappen v McLaren: How the Las Vegas GP unfolded

Both Verstappen and Norris retained their starting positions at the start, P5 and P6 respectively. The Red Bull driver got rid of Pierre Gasly on lap 5, which was key to opening a gap to Norris as the Alpine was the fastest car on the straights of the Las Vegas street circuit.

Norris was not able to overtake Gasly as easily and it was not until the end of lap 8 that he was able to overtake the Frenchman. By then, Verstappen had even managed to overtake Charles Leclerc who had his medium tyres destroyed in his chase for P1 against George Russell.

In these three laps behind Gasly, the gap to Verstappen had already exceeded five seconds. Norris began to suffer the effects of graining, which in the case of McLaren as well as Ferrari was bad in comparison with Red Bull.

The Papaya team decided to stop Norris at the end of lap 9, as Ferrari did with Leclerc to launch a ‘long-range’ undercut attack on Verstappen and to see if he could find more pace on the hard tyre.

This early first stop already doomed Norris’ race development. The McLaren driver came out of the pits with a lot of traffic ahead. Verstappen extended his stint two laps longer than Norris, and came out in P6 completing an overcut to Carlos Sainz for virtual P2 while Norris was still running P11 (virtual P5) behind Leclerc despite having good pace in the opening laps on the hard tyre.

On lap 17, Lewis Hamilton, who was flying with the Mercedes, overtook Norris for P6 on track. From here, the McLaren driver was in no man’s land with Yuki Tsunoda at +8.5 seconds and with Hamilton opening the gap progressively without being able to get close to him at any time.

Meanwhile, Verstappen was still in a comfortable P2 with more than nine seconds gap to Russell and with the Ferraris making up lost ground after getting into traffic at the first stop.

The Red Bull driver made his second stop at the end of lap 27 to avoid traffic to start in virtual P5 just behind Lando, still without a second pit stop with almost 9 seconds gap.

McLaren extended Norris’ second stint until lap 31 looking to make a different move. The British driver went out on track in P7, more than 15 seconds ahead of Verstappen who was running in P3 waiting for Leclerc’s second stop.

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After all the stops on lap 34, Norris’ race became a monologue. Running in P6 with more than 10 seconds over Leclerc in P5 and with his teammate Oscar Piastri in P7 more than 9 seconds behind. The Australian was also completely missing this weekend.

Verstappen had no need to risk more than necessary and was not overly belligerent against the Ferraris. First Sainz and then Leclerc on lap 47 overtook the Red Bull driver who dropped to fifth ahead of Norris, but with +10.2 seconds advantage.

With this race situation and just three laps to go, Verstappen was world champion regardless of whether Norris achieved the fastest lap or not. Still, having a free pit stop, McLaren definitely threw in the towel on the last lap and stopped Norris to at least get an extra point for the Constructors’ Championship fight against Ferrari.

Verstappen crossed the line in P5 with a +26.803s gap to Norris in P6, who on the soft tyre set the fastest lap on the final lap with a time of 1:34.876. Piastri even with this extra pit stop finished almost eight seconds behind his teammate. A very poor race for the McLaren team overall.

The good news of the day for the Woking-based team was Mercedes’ unexpected superiority. Thus, despite losing a good handful of points to Ferrari, with two rounds to go they now look more confident of clinching the Constructors’ World Championship.