By Rory Carroll
LAS VEGAS (Reuters) -Red Bull’s Max Verstappen won the Las Vegas Grand Prix on Saturday but McLaren’s Lando Norris had one hand on the Formula One title after finishing second and stretching his lead over teammate Oscar Piastri to 30 points.
Piastri finished fourth after Mercedes’ Kimi Antonelli, who was ahead of the Australian at the chequered flag, had five seconds added for jumping the start.
George Russell, last year’s winner of the floodlit race and like Norris making his 150th start, completed the podium for Mercedes.
With two grands prix and a sprint to come, worth a maximum 58 points, Norris has 408 points to Piastri’s 378 with four-times world champion Verstappen still mathematically in contention on 366.
Norris finished 20.741 seconds behind but can now secure his first title in Qatar next weekend, with McLaren having already clinched the constructors’ crown for the second year in a row.
QUITE A DECENT GAP
“The car was working pretty well, much more to my liking,” said Verstappen, ferried to the podium with Norris and Russell in a LEGO pink Cadillac convertible driven by actor Terry Crews as fireworks lit up the sky over the Strip.
“It was at the end quite a decent gap.”
It was the 69th win of Verstappen’s career and his sixth of the season, as well as his 125th podium and eighth in a row in the 150th grand prix of Red Bull’s partnership with Honda.
Norris lost the lead to Verstappen at the start, dropping to third when he ran wide at the first corner and opened the door for the Dutch driver and Russell.
He retook second from Russell on the 34th of 50 laps but then had to manage fuel to the finish.
“I let Max have a win,” he joked. “I let him go, let him have a nice race. No, I just braked too late,” he added, with an expletive on the live television feed that could land the Briton in trouble with the governing FIA.
“It was not my best performance out there but when the guy wins by 20 seconds it’s because he has just done a better job and they’re a bit quicker.”
Antonelli finished fifth with Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc sixth and Williams’ Carlos Sainz seventh. Isack Hadjar was eighth for Racing Bulls and Sauber’s Nico Hulkenberg and Ferrari’s Lewis Hamilton completed the top 10.
Piastri dropped from fifth to seventh on the opening lap after contact with Racing Bulls’ Liam Lawson, who plunged to last with a badly damaged car.
Verstappen was 20 seconds clear of the field by lap 23 and pitted at the halfway point, rejoining in the lead after Russell and Norris had switched already to the hard tyre.
Aston Martin’s Lance Stroll was taken out by Sauber’s Gabriel Borteleto as the Brazilian rookie dived aggressively into the first corner and ran out of road, with both retiring immediately.
Alpine’s Pierre Gasly was also a spinner at the start and the virtual safety car was triggered on the second lap for marshals to retrieve debris between turns one and four.
The VSC was deployed again on lap 16 for more debris on track after Williams’ Alex Albon and Hamilton collided, with the latter racing from 19th and last on the grid to 13th on the opening lap.
Albon, whose team lost radio contact with the car from the start, was handed a five-second penalty for causing the collision and also reprimanded for a starting procedure infringement.
(Writing by Alan Baldwin in London, editing by Peter Rutherford)
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