McLaren’s gamble doesn’t pay off: F1 Las Vegas Grand Prix 2025 review

Max Verstappen wins in Las Vegas, as McLaren rolls the dice on floor planks, leading to their drivers being disqualified.

The ever awake Las Vegas was the host to the 22^nd round of the 2025 F1 season, bringing not only a unique circuit design to the calendar, but also a hole host of dramatics to the closing title fight. Coming into this weekend, Lando Norris lead Oscar Piastri by 24 points, to a trailing Verstappen in third who was a further 25 points back from Piastri. However, championships have been fought from further back (when taking into account points system changes), so none of the 3 drivers should be counted out yet.

Qualifying took place on a very wet Vegas strip, with shock exits coming right off the bat in Q1! Lewis Hamilton, Kimi Antonelli (who had been fast in all practise sessions this weekend) and Alex Albon were all eliminated in Q1, with the later of the trio oversteering into the wall on his final run, sending him out of the session. Yuki Tsunoda and rookie Gabriel Bortoleto joined them in the drop zone, meaning all teams had at least one driver through to Q2. The wet tyres remained the fastest option for Q2, which saw several of the midfield teams loose out with 11^th-15^th place being filled by Nico Hulkenberg, Lance Stroll, Esteban Ocon, Oliver Bearman and Franco Colapinto. This left the final 10 ready for the pole position shootout, this time on the intermediate tyre, as the track had begun to dry out. The changing conditions of this session meant that most drivers final laps would be their fastest, leaving no room for error. Sainz was the first to lead on the final runs, quickly outpaced by Verstappen. Improvements were seen throughout the top 10, with Norris jumping to pole ahead of the Dutch racer. Unfortunately for other title rival Piastri, a mistake on his final lap would leave him down in 5^th for the grid of the race, behind Norris, Verstappen, Sainz and Russell.

With a new power unit added to his car, Yuki Tsunoda was required to start from the pitlane for Saturday’s race, with everybody else lining up how they finished in qualifying. As the 5 red lights went out, Verstappen made a good start from P2 on the grid, as Norris chopped across him, running wide at turn 1 and handing Verstappen the lead. Russell had passed Sainz off the start and then followed Verstappen through past Norris. The other McLaren of Piastri also had a troubled start, being decent off the line but ultimately hit by Lawson and subsequently overtaken by both Racing Bulls drivers (Hadjar & Lawson). This incident would leave Lawson with damage which appeared a lap later, sending him to the pits for a new front wing. As the race went on, Piastri slowly but surely climbed the field, passing Hadjar, Sainz and Leclerc through the pitstop phase of the race. Lap 34 saw Norris flying down the strip in Russell’s slipstream, opening DRS and making the move for 2^nd place, attempting to chase down title rival Verstappen in 1^st. After closing into just a couple of seconds, Norris’ McLaren was hit with a technical issue, loosing him over 10 seconds of time, leaving him no choice to lift and cost to the line.

After a dominant display however, there was little Norris could do, with Verstappen winning the Grand Prix from Norris in 2^nd and Russell in 3^rd. The rest of the top 10 were as follows: Piastri, Antonelli (who fought back from 17^th on the grid with a 5 second penalty for jumping the start too), Leclerc, Sainz, Hadjar, Hulkenberg and Hamilton. But, after scrutineering, it was found that the planks on the floor of both McLaren cars had experienced excessive wear and, as such, both drivers were disqualified from the race. This promoted Antonelli onto the podium, with Russell inheriting second. Both Haas cars were also promoted into the points, with Ocon being 9^th and Bearman 10^th.

So, what does this mean for the championship? With just 2 rounds (2 full races and a sprint) to go, Norris leads the championship by 24 points to Piastri and Verstappen, who are tied on points for second. If Norris outscores both drivers next round at Qatar, he will win the championship. But, can Piastri and Verstappen fight back? Although he has had a string of rough races recently, Piastri showed incredible pace throughout the start of this season and, if a track suits his racing style more than Norris, it is entirely feasible to believe he may be able to claw back some points from the Brit. As for Verstappen, he has been flying towards the back end of this season, chasing his 4^th consecutive championship. It would be silly to count either man out of the fight and, with a maximum of 58 points left, it is still all to play for in the race for the 2025 Formula 1 Driver’s Championship.