Max Verstappen romped to victory in the Las Vegas Grand Prix to notch a record-extending 18th win of the campaign despite making a setup compromise ahead of qualifying.
While many of the Dutchman’s victories this year have been processional, this time around Verstappen had to fend off team-mate Sergio Perez and Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc.
Verstappen’s race was almost thrown off script on several occasions, firstly when he received a five-second time penalty for forcing Leclerc wide at the opening corner.
As he carved his way through, Verstappen’s progress was dealt another blow when he came together with George Russell, who became the next recipient of a five-second penalty.
The Safety Car was deployed to clear up the debris, setting up a stellar final stint as both Red Bulls boxed for a second set of Hards in their pursuit of Leclerc.
“It was very fun. I mean, I had a McLaren and an Alpine in between Checo and Charles but once I cleared them I could join the fight and it was basically flat out to the end and that was really cool,” the reigning champion said.
“Once we had the message to the end we could go flat-out, you could clearly see with the DRS around here it was very powerful, so even when you would take the lead.
“If the guy behind would stay in the DRS, he would still have an opportunity to come back at you. I think it created quite a lot of good racing, so it was definitely a lot of fun.”
Had it not been for the second Safety Car – caused by the Verstappen-Russell tangle – polesitter Leclerc looked set to disrupt Red Bull’s latest winning run.
Aware of the Ferrari’s prowess in its low-downforce configuration, Verstappen switched to Red Bull’s skinnier rear wing ahead of qualifying which aided his victory.
“It was a bit of give and take. I tried it already on the simulator and it was very similar in lap time. You just achieve it in a different way,” he explained.
“We don’t really have a fantastic low downforce wing. It’s a bit of a compromise. It’s not, let’s say, the most efficient way of driving it but that’s just for cost saving. We don’t really use that wing that often.
“I went for it into qualifying, I thought it was okay. But of course also today, yeah, for sure, it’s quick on the straight but it was also then a little bit more loose in the corners, so I had to just try and manage that.”
The compromise paid off as Verstappen tied four-time champion Sebastian Vettel on 53 victories as the driver with the third most wins in the sport’s history.
Verstappen occupied the headlines for much of the Las Vegas GP week due to his scathing criticism of the grandiose event and the venue.
“Well, I always expected it to be a good race today,” he claimed in the post-race press conference, having previously branded the weekend “99% show, 1% sporting event”.
“It was just – like I said before – four long straights, low-speed corners, you don’t lose a lot of downforce. So that has never been my issue. But yeah, today was fun.
“That’s the only thing I want to say about it; I think today was fun. I hope everyone enjoyed it. I think the DRS effect was strong but good. I mean it made for fun racing out there.
“I think when you’re following you don’t really lose that much time, because they are that slow, the corners. And then there’s a lot of draught around the track, you know, after Turn 4 to 5, from Turn 9 to 12 and then, yeah, of course, all the way from 12 to 14 and then from 16 to Turn 1 is again, a draft-fest. So that made the racing much better.”
