Max Verstappen became Formula 1 world champion for the fourth time after winning the 2024 Las Vegas Grand Prix.
Verstappen, 27, is only the sixth driver in the sport’s history to win at least four world titles.
Michael Schumacher and Lewis Hamilton each have seven wins, 1950s Argentine legend Juan-Manuel Fangio has five wins, and Alain Prost, Sebastian Vettel and now Verstappen have four wins.
Verstappen, who has won every driver’s championship since controversially claiming his first title at the end of the 2021 season, has now won four in a row, joining Hamilton, Fangio and Vettel.
Only Schumacher has scored five times in a row.
Verstappen is coming off his most dominant season in history in 2023, in which he won a record 19 of 22 races, and looked set to bounce back after winning seven of his first 10 races this year.
However, Red Bull’s unexpected struggles, coupled with McLaren’s emergence as the grid’s most consistent frontrunner and Ferrari moving forward after the summer break, saw Lando Norris challenge for the second half of the season.
However, while Red Bull lost the lead in the Constructors’ Championship and slipped to third amid Sergio Perez’s continued struggles, Verstappen’s ability to continue scoring strong points allowed him to take the lead at a more gradual pace from his season-high of 84 points. . British Grand Prix in July.
Norris took 44 points in the sprint at the Sao Paulo GP earlier this month, but a day later the title race was decisively flipped in favor of Verstappen when the Dutchman produced a sublime drive in the rain-affected Grand Prix to win from 17th place. on the grid while his McLaren rivals faltered from pole to sixth.
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Martin Brundle takes a closer look at Max Verstappen’s brilliance ahead of the Las Vegas GP, where the Red Bull driver became a four-time world champion.
Verstappen won the race overall for the first time in five months and re-established a commanding lead of 62 points, which he is expected to win in Las Vegas ahead of Norris, who achieved this by finishing one place ahead of him in the race on Sunday morning in fifth place. meant that Here’s his McLaren rival struggling for speed.
Verstappen moved up to second behind eventual race winner George Russell in the early stages of the race, but slipped off the podium to fifth after being overtaken by the Ferrari duo of Lewis Hamilton and Carlos Sainz in a long second race on hard tyres. And Charles Leclerc.
More to follow…
