Las Vegas Grand Prix: Max Verstappen Wins 18th Race As Charles Leclerc Pips Sergio Perez To Take Second Place

Max Verstappen has reached an incredible milestone of 18th race victories in a single F1 season after edging out Charles Leclerc to be quickest in Las Vegas. 

Pole-setter, Leclerc put up a good show of pace against the dominant car, Verstappen's as the lead interchanged between the pair until Lap 37 before Sergio Perez showed up to join the contest for the race. At the later stages, whilst Verstappen had regained lead with Perez trailing, Leclerc gave it another fight for the front row and took down Perez on DRS to move up to second. 

Ferrari seemed to have improved lately and stronger since the qualifying session. Leclerc would have reprised his performance from Saturday, but the Red Bull duo had a plan as Verstappen pitted for better tyres in the later stages and Perez battling for front row. 

By the way, Verstappen was given 5-second penalty for forcing Leclerc off track at the start of the race. Though both drivers went wide but the stewards found the Dutchman at fault. He yet improved to the front after the race was red flag for Lando Norris' crash. 

"It was a tough one," Verstappen admitted. "The stewards gave me penalty for that and it put us in the backfoot. I had to pass quite a few cars and there was the Safety Car, so at that point there was a lot going on."

The race was a bit chaotic from the start with Norris crashing his McLaren four laps into the race and safety car was called. The Briton was taken to the hospital afterwards. There was also a second safety car with few laps remaining, and that was when Red Bull's prospect for one-two was ruined as Leclerc sped by Perez. 

"I really enjoyed," said Leclerc. "I'm of course disappointed to only finish second, but at the end that was the best we could do. At the start, it was very tricky because I think Max on the inside lost a little bit of grip and brought me on the outside."

With that being said, Aston Martin's Lance Stroll had an impressive race for having improved from P19 to finish finish fifth behind Alpine's Esteban Ocon. Both drivers maintained that position through the later stages. 

Behind Ocon and Stroll was Red Bull's Carlos Sainz finishing in P5 followed by Mercedes' Lewis Hamilton, who improved from P10 to P6 whilst his teammate, George Russell followed in P7.