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LAS VEGAS — Max Verstappen hopes what happens in Vegas doesn’t just stay in Vegas — it goes into the history books.
The Red Bull driver could win the Formula One world championship here on Saturday night and join the elite club of quadruple champions, alongside Michael Schumacher, Lewis Hamilton, Sebastian Vettel, Alain Prost and Juan Manuel Fangio.
Verstappen, 27, of the Netherlands, can win the trophy by finishing the 50-lap race ahead of his only championship rival, Lando Norris. Verstappen heads into the weekend 62 points ahead of McLaren’s Norris. Norris needs to beat Verstappen by at least 3 points to keep his title hopes alive, although they would be slim anyway.
No other driver is mathematically in contention for the championship with three races remaining in the season.
“It looks a little better now at the championship. But we’ll see this weekend,” Verstappen told reporters in Las Vegas. “We have good hopes of being competitive, but I don’t know, of course, how competitive.”
And there is a three-way battle for the constructors’ championship, with McLaren leading Ferrari by 36 points and Red Bull another 13 points behind.
McLaren is hoping to win 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 the most championships with 16, has not returned the trophy to Maranello since 2008.
The Woking-based team has benefited from two drivers, Norris and Oscar Piastri, each winning two races this season, while Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc and Carlos Sainz have each won three and two respectively. Verstappen accounted for 72% of Red Bull’s points, with teammate Sergio Perez taking just four podiums and no wins.
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Verstappen started the year as the undisputed leader after winning a record 19 races last year. But after occupying the top step of the podium in seven of the first ten races, Red Bull lost its advantage over the other teams and it would go 10 Grand Prix races without a victory.
Verstappen’s long-awaited victory came three weeks ago on a rainy weekend in Brazil after he started 17th on the grid, a heroic and desperately sought victory that ranks among his finest performances. He suffered a five-place grid penalty for using a new engine component, but he finished the race with a 19-second gap to second-placed Esteban Ocon of Alpine.
Norris finished that race in sixth place, which he said was a major blow to his title hopes.
“I think post-Brazil was difficult for me, because it was the first moment, realistically, where I said to myself: ‘It’s difficult to reach first place now.’ We were in such good shape, little by little,” Norris told reporters in Las Vegas. “It’s difficult to score big points on Max, because he didn’t have bad races, but I did. Had a rough week, because things just didn’t go our way My real championship fight was cut by the largest margin of almost the entire year.
The lights and glamor of Vegas serve as an almost Hollywood pivot for the 2025 season, which will see 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 be leaving Mercedes for Ferrari’s Rosso Corsa.
Next year, 18-year-old Andrea Kimi Antonelli will replace 39-year-old Hamilton at the Silver Arrows, while his Formula 2 teammate Oliver Bearman will join Haas, the only American team on the grid. Current Formula 2 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 mid-season swap, is looking to secure a place at his current team RB next year.
“Scoring points and having strong races. This is the best way to guarantee a spot next year,” Lawson told NBC News before the race. “And honestly that’s the goal: to obviously be in Formula 1 again full-time. I feel like I’m just getting started.
Lawson, 22, reflected on the challenges younger drivers face in getting into the sport, while older drivers stay longer.
“A lot of experienced guys have been racing for quite a long time. And it’s definitely harder for younger drivers to step in,” he said. “But at the same time, I think potentially, now, maybe teams are starting to trust us a little bit more than previous years. There was a period where the grid didn’t really change. And now it’s changing a lot, which is exciting.
This article was originally published on NBCNews.com
