Formula 1 returns to Las Vegas as Max Verstappen looks to clinch championship

LAS VEGAS — Max Verstappen is hoping that what happens in Vegas won't just stay in Vegas — it will go down in the history books.

The Red Bull racer could clinch the Formula 1 world championship here Saturday night and join the elite club of four-time champions, alongside only Michael Schumacher, Lewis Hamilton, Sebastian Vettel, Alain Prost and Juan Manuel Fangio.

Verstappen, 27, of the Netherlands, can secure the trophy by finishing the 50-lap race ahead of his sole championship rival, Lando Norris. Verstappen heads into the weekend 62 points ahead of McLaren’s Norris. Norris needs to outscore Verstappen by at least 3 points to keep his title hopes alive, although they would be slim regardless.

No other driver is mathematically in contention for the championship with three races left in the season.

“Looks a bit better now in the championship. But we’ll see this weekend,” Verstappen told reporters in Las Vegas. “We have good hopes to be competitive, but I don’t know, of course, how competitive.”

And there’s a three-way battle for the constructors championship, with McLaren leading Ferrari by 36 points and Red Bull another 13 points behind.

McLaren hopes to secure its first constructors championship since 1998, when Finnish driver Mika Häkkinen won the drivers championship with the now papaya-colored team. Ferrari, which holds the record for most championships at 16, has not returned the trophy to Maranello since 2008. 

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The Woking-based team has benefited from both drivers, Norris and Oscar Piastri, each of whom have won two races this season, while Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc and Carlos Sainz have each won three and two, respectively. Verstappen has accounted for 72% of Red Bull’s points, with teammate Sergio Perez earning only four podium finishes and no wins. 

Verstappen began the year as the clear front-runner after he won a record 19 races last year. But after having occupied the top step of the podium in seven of the first 10 races, Red Bull lost its edge over other teams, and he would go 10 Grand Prix races without a win.

Verstappen’s long-awaited victory came three weeks ago during a rain-soaked weekend in Brazil after he started 17th on the grid, a heroic and desperately sought win that ranks among his greatest drives. He suffered a five-place grid penalty for taking a new engine component, but he finished the race with a 19-second gap to the second-place finisher, Alpine’s Esteban Ocon. 

Norris finished that race in sixth, which he acknowledged was a blow to his title hopes.

“I think post-Brazil was a tough one for me, because it was the first moment, realistically, when I’m like, 'It’s tough to achieve first position now.' We were on such a good run of form, little by little,” Norris told reporters in Las Vegas. “It’s hard to get any big points on Max, because he didn’t have any bad races, but I had a tough week, because things just didn’t go our way. My kind of real fight for the championship was slimmed by the biggest margin of almost of the whole year.”

The lights and glamor of Vegas serve as an almost Hollywood-esque pivot to the 2025 season, which will feature the addition of at least four rookie drivers to the grid.

The so-called silly season began when seven-time champion Lewis Hamilton made the surprising announcement that he would leave Mercedes for the Rosso Corsa of Ferrari. 

Next year, Andrea Kimi Antonelli, 18, will replace Hamilton, 39, at the Silver Arrows, while Antonelli’s Formula 2 teammate Oliver Bearman will join Haas, the only American-based team on the grid. Formula 2’s current championship leader, Gabriel Bortoleto, will drive for Kick Sauber, which will become Audi in 2026. Alpine reserve driver Jack Doohan will be promoted to a full-time seat at the Enstone-based team. 

And Liam Lawson, who replaced Daniel Ricciardo in a rare midseason swap, is looking to secure a spot at his current team, RB, next year.

“Scoring points and having strong races. That’s the best way to secure myself a spot next year,” Lawson told NBC News ahead of the race. “And honestly, that is the goal — to obviously be in Formula 1 full time again. I feel like I’ve just started.”

Lawson, 22, reflected on the challenges for young drivers to get into the sport as older drivers are staying longer.

“Quite a few experienced guys race for quite a long time. And it’s definitely more difficult for younger drivers to step in," he said. "But at the same time, I do think that potentially, now, teams are starting to maybe trust us a little bit more than in previous years. There was a period there where the grid wasn’t really changing. And now it’s changing quite a lot, which is exciting.”