Winners and losers from F1’s 2024 Las Vegas Grand Prix

Formula One’s 2024 Las Vegas Grand Prix did not provide the chaos of last year’s opening race, but did provide a mixed-up grid, an unexpected one-two and a title-winning fifth place.

Here are our picks for winners and losers:

Winner: Max Verstappen

Not really a winner because of Saturday’s strength when third suddenly turned into fifth in the last stint, and not really a winner because of weekend’s strength because if we put him in every time he was the best Red Bull driver , would take up permanent residence in this column.

But it’s one thing to seal a title upfront with blatant nonchalance when you’re in a dominant car – and quite another to do so when you’re driving for a team that will almost certainly finish third in this year’s constructors’ standings.

How many times has Max Verstappen left points on the table this season? Only two prominent examples come to mind, and in both cases – whether fair or not – he effectively ensured that his main title rival also came in under his maximum score.

It has been a masterpiece of a season, both Verstappen’s best title to date and perhaps the best we have seen in the hybrid era of F1. – Val Khorounzhiy

Loser: McLaren

The drivers’ title was clearly already super gone in Brazil, and McLaren and Norris can perhaps console themselves – when you look at a day like Saturday in Vegas – that it never actually was on initially.

But if this was always going to be a damage limitation race versus Ferrari in the constructors’ standings, it should be a concern that it was Mercedes doing the damage limitation for McLaren instead.

Today, McLaren was an outlier in a bad way among its ‘big four’ peers – being overtaken with ease by rivals, unable to hang with the fight and ultimately cut desperately adrift.

It’s a favorite for Qatar, which pays out more points thanks to being a sprint event, so the 24-point lead over Ferrari is still pretty robust – but it’s no longer feels very sure, and McLaren will not appreciate the reminder that its car, seen for most of the season as the grid’s true all-rounder, is still capable of days like these. – VK

Loser: Williams

Alpine’s double podium at Interlagos ended Williams’ season as a competitive proposition, turning it instead into a printing press for crash repair bills.

Alex Albon finishing today in the points wouldn’t change the fact that the three teams in front are unattainable and the only team behind is a non-factor – but it sure would have been nice given how much pain there have been through various accidents on the way, in terms of finances and in relation to man hours.

Having to retire Albon instead simply added insult to injury in a season that has completely unraveled. “It feels like it’s just been a very strange last couple of months,” Albon himself admitted. “Where it just never went our way.

“So… it turns around in the end. The boys and the girls, everyone is strong, everyone knows that basically we just have to stay strong through it all.” – VK

Winner: Mercedes

After spending the majority of 2024 as F1’s fourth-fastest team and almost the entire second half of the season in that spot, Mercedes returned to dominant form in style in Vegas.

There’s no guarantee this will continue for Qatar and Abu Dhabi, but at least it’s some kind of peak Mercedes can point to in the latter half of 2024.

And as team principal Toto Wolff pointed out, the team has collected a ton of data from when the W15 is in its sweet spot. Now it’s about replicating it every weekend, so that the next Mercedes victory is far less of an outlier. – Josh Suttill

Loser: Alpine

After a double podium in Brazil, Pierre Gasly’s third place for the Las Vegas GP pointed to further potential Constructors’ Championship wins.

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Fight for sixth post-Vegas

6 Haas 50
7 Alpine -1
8 RB -4
9 Williams -33

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But a power unit problem ruled him out and the team dropped a place in the championship behind a rejuvenated Haas. Esteban Ocon was never in the conversation and missed his pit box during a stop – it seemed his team wasn’t ready for him in the pit lane – further adding to its woes. – JB

Winner: Lewis Hamilton

It was George Russell who ultimately won in Vegas, but perhaps Lewis Hamilton was just as big a winner in how the race played out.

Russell was briefly threatened early on, but Mercedes clearly had the fastest pack and Hamilton used it to move from 10th to second.

In light of recent comments from Toto Wolff about drivers having a durability and Hamilton’s qualifying failure while his team-mate scored pole, this was the ultimate bounceback.

It hasn’t answered all the questions about whether Hamilton is still operating at his peak over a lap, but after many have condemned him to the scrapheap this year, this race could be the catalyst for his rejuvenation over the final two rounds and a much better start to his Ferrari contact. – JB

Loser: Ferrari

Ferrari is a winner in the sense that it gained some ground on McLaren in the Constructors’ Championship race, but it’s a loser for not taking a bigger chunk out of it.

Expectations for the Vegas were much higher, and although the excellent tire-warming characteristic that made it so potent in Vegas last year has been somewhat sacrificed for a better all-round car this year, it was not expected to be soundly beaten by the Mercedes.

Team principal Fred Vasseur believes things would have gone differently if Charles Leclerc had passed Russell early in the race. But Leclerc didn’t. Instead, he suffered a dramatic tire drop and later anxiety after feeling as though agreements with team-mate Carlos Sainz had not been honoured.

McLaren is unlikely to be so weak again, so Ferrari can rue a missed chance to strike a bigger blow. – JS

Winner: Nico Hulkenberg

“You’re deck manager now!” was race engineer Gary Gannon’s response to Hulkenberg’s drive – which briefly appeared to be the stereotypical Hulk race of turning an over-par grid position into a sub-par finish, but instead the driver and team were to fully maximize the opportunities.

Hulkenberg’s first stint had been significantly extended over the median, setting him up for an eye-popping run to get ahead with an ever-present tire shift – culminating in a late overtake on Yuki Tsunoda.

Considering every car from the ‘big four’ finished, Haas is able to leapfrog Alpine in the standings – not without help from Alpine, but still – quite an achievement in the final two rounds, although the job is obviously far from done . .

A word for Tsunoda too, an unofficial honorary ‘winner’ due to his weekend as a whole compared to the weekends of every other driver mentioned in the second Red Bull seat – including incumbent Sergio Perez, who drove a fine enough recovery run but was still three tenths behind Tsunoda at the flag. – VK

Loser: Sauber

With a new upgrade, Zhou Guanyu, who starts at No. 13 on the track and then having a strong start to the race, you could be forgiven for thinking that Sauber could finally score a point.

However, Zhou was moved out of the points and finished just second ahead of Franco Colapinto, who started from the pit lane, in 13th.

It could be argued that Zhou ran too long on his hard power in the second stint, but in reality Sauber simply slipped back into a more natural position behind much faster cars.

“I think we maximized the result we could have had with our tempo,” read Zhou’s verdict.

At least he managed to run a few laps in the top 10, but he ultimately finished where he started – and Sauber are two weekends away from a pointless season. – JB