When it comes to F1, what happens in Vegas doesn't stay in Vegas
- pitwallstories
- Nov 25, 2024
- 5 min read
After yet another short break in the 2024 Formula 1 season, the drivers arrived in Las Vegas ready as never before. Just like Miami, the Las Vegas Grand Prix is another show of extravaganza, aimed to entertain the crowd and the people watching at home. This year it was no different.
A much much colder weather welcomed the drivers in the desert of Nevada, USA this year. Something that most of them did not expect as we’ve seen from all the interviews they’d done out in the open, wearing heavy jackets and even covering their legs with warm covers.
But nonetheless every single driver on the grid was ready to feel the heat and the adrenaline of driving their cars again.
The Las Vegas street circuit has a rather ‘simple’ shape, with a few slow and high speed turns and endless straights that drive all the way down the ‘Las Vegas Strip’, amongst the casinos and some of the most famous hotels in the world. For certain teams this is an ideal circuit and for others, not so much. And this year we have witnessed once again the teams who were favored by the American track and those who unfortunately suffered.
A Mercedes sandwich
Keeping up Mercedes’ amazing race pace practiced in FPs, George Russell wonderfully secured pole position, only a tenth ahead of Carlos Sainz and Pierre Gasly, who did an incredible job in positioning his car so up front.
At this point, there had been talks about the championship of course, and seeing Max Verstappen and Lando Norris qualifying so frighteningly close to one another, opened up the fight once again. Verstappen knew that he had only one job for this weekend and that was to finish ahead of his British opponent.
Charles Leclerc showing really good pace in cold conditions, qualified 4th ahead of the most awaited duel’s protagonists. Behind them was Yuki Tsunoda, mixing up the starting grid a bit along with Oscar Piastri and Nico Hulkenberg. Completing the grid was the pole-sitter’s teammate Lewis Hamilton, sort of using Mercedes as bread to sandwich the starting grid for the race.
“Viva Las Vegas!”
Finally free of all the VIPs and cameras filming every single detail on the cars, the grid was ready under the lights of Sin City.
The formation lap opened the way for the drivers to test their tyres and how they felt on the cold asphalt, already showing them a bit of struggle in terms of grip and their management.
Nonetheless, the drivers repositioned themselves at the Start and waited for ‘Lights out’.
Once the race started, we already saw an amazing reaction from George Russell, flying away and keeping his first position. In the meantime, behind him, the Ferrari boys managed to both overtake Gasly who found himself down in fourth position after only a few turns from the start.
By lap 4 Leclerc reached the pole sitter and put pressure on him while in the middle of the grid, some drivers were having their personal battles. Fernando Alonso had secured himself some good overtakes only to then enter the pits really early to change his soft tyres, while Oscar Piastri received a 5-second penalty for a false start at the beginning of the race.
As mentioned before, the tyres were causing some of the drivers to drop their performances drastically. Like Leclerc who eventually only on lap 10 entered the pits to put on a new set of hard tyres.
Verstappen pitted shortly after, followed by race leader Russell who, after coming out of the pit lane, managed to wonderfully overtake his rivals and regained first position. In the meantime, heartbreak for Alpine when Gasly cried out “No power!” that forced him to retire early from the race after a magnificent qualifying.
By the time we were halfway through this 50-laps race, Russell was more than 10 seconds ahead of Verstappen, the Ferraris and Hamilton. On lap 28 a new entry to the box happened with Verstappen and Hamilton who pitted together, quickly followed by Sainz who had a misunderstanding with the team because the tyres were not ready so he had to stay out one more lap.
“Max just don’t lose sight of our aim today.” race engineer Lambiase’s words heavy with pressure on Verstappen as he was driving his race, managing a possible podium for RedBull. The 4th Championship title in a row was close for the dutchman and, rightfully so, he was thinking that it would’ve been nice to receive the title while also standing on the Las Vegas podium.
Further back, an unseen incident between Ocon and Lawson was noted by the stewards with the french team radioing frustration after the contact that was not going to be investigated further.
The end of the race was close and Russell was now flying at more than 30 seconds from Hamilton before they did a quick tyre swap, taking advantage of their free pitstop window. In the meantime, Norris pitted as well, aiming to get that Fastest Lap additional point, still dreaming of reopening the fight for the Championship but at this point, with Verstappen secured in third position, it was gonna be a hard thing to achieve.
Eventually Sainz managed to overtake the dutchman, finishing the race on the podium behind a Mercedes 1-2, just as Toto Wolff predicted in a post qualifying statement.
Of course we would have not been in Las Vegas if there wasn’t any drama unfolding in-between teams and that is what happened between the Ferrari boys. Leclerc radioed his frustration with the team’s strategy quite loudly after the race, so much so that team principal Fred Vasseur had to intervene and shut him up. Later, during the post race media panel, both Ferrari drivers said that they’d rather not discuss what happened on the media, wanting to keep their intrateam discussions private.
And so the Las Vegas Grand Prix of 2024 ended the weekend not disappointing the crowds, allowing George Russell to obtain his second win this season, Mercedes got a 1-2 race finish and most importantly, Max Verstappen was crowded World Champion for the 4th time in a row, matching Sebastian Vettel and Alain Prost.
“It’s been a long season and of course we started off amazing, it was almost like cruising, but then we had a tough run – but as a team, we kept it together, we kept working on improvements and we pulled off the win,” said Verstappen. “Incredibly proud of everyone, what they have done for me, and to stand here as a four-time world champion is of course something I never thought was possible.”
