Formula 1 Las Vegas Grand Prix 2025 Race Report: Verstappen Steals the Show in Las Vegas

Las Vegas gave us a night that never really sat still. Max Verstappen grabbed the lead off the line and settled into a rhythm that nobody else could shake. Lando Norris chased, George Russell tried to disrupt, and Kimi Antonelli defended with the kind of calm that shouldn’t belong to a teenager, but none of it changed the shape of the race. Verstappen owned the Strip and kept the title fight breathing. Hours later, the entire picture shifted again when both McLarens were disqualified for plank wear, rewriting the final order and tightening the championship fight even further. This is your F1 Las Vegas Grand Prix 2025 race review, with every phase of the race, the key strategy shifts, and what it means for the championship.

Key Points – F1 Las Vegas Grand Prix 2025 Race Review

• Key Points – F1 Las Vegas Grand Prix 2025 Race Review
• Winner: Max Verstappen
• Revised Podium: George Russell, Kimi Antonelli
• McLaren Disqualified: Both cars removed after failing post-race plank thickness checks
• Start drama: Norris ran wide at Turn 1 and lost the lead before later being disqualified
• Rookie spotlight: Antonelli delivered a calm, resilient drive and still claimed P3 after his +5s penalty
• Penalties: Antonelli (false start), Albon (collision with Hamilton)
• Retirements: Lance Stroll, Gabriel Bortoleto, Alexander Albon
• Strategy story: Straight Medium–Hard one-stop shaped the race
• Championship picture: Norris stays on 390. Verstappen jumps to P2 on countback, level on points with Piastri (366 each)

Race Recap – F1 Las Vegas Grand Prix 2025 Race Review

Start and opening laps

Lights out in Vegas and the night flipped fast. Norris chopped across Verstappen but carried too much speed into Turn 1 and ran wide. Verstappen didn’t need a second invitation. Russell followed him through. Norris dropped to third, the mistake shaping everything that followed on track before his later disqualification changed the final order.

Behind them, the midfield detonated. Gasly spun. Lawson tagged Piastri. Albon clipped Hamilton. Stroll and Bortoleto tangled and both retired. The Virtual Safety Car came out on Lap 3 for debris, with Lawson, Gasly, Antonelli and Tsunoda all pitting early.

Verstappen handled the restart cleanly. Broke Russell’s DRS. Set the tone.

Lap 6–15

Leclerc began a recovery drive. Picked off Bearman. Picked off Hadjar. Then passed Piastri into Turn 16 as the Australian’s front tyres grained up. McLaren looked uneasy early on, both cars lacking balance in traffic.

Antonelli was noted for moving before the start and picked up a five-second penalty.
Russell reported steering issues again, echoing his qualifying problem.

A second VSC arrived on Lap 16 for debris. Nobody stopped. Verstappen led by 3.3 seconds. Norris hovered behind without real bite.

Lap 16–25

When racing resumed, Piastri cleared Hadjar but still couldn’t unlock the pace he needed. Russell blinked first, pitting on Lap 18 for Hards. Bearman followed. Norris stopped soon after for the same tyre, both McLarens still running in the fight at this stage before their post-race exclusions reshuffled the classification.

Piastri pitted on Lap 22 to cover Russell’s pace.
Albon received a five-second penalty for the earlier clash with Hamilton.

Leclerc boxed and slotted back in behind Piastri. Sainz stopped too and lost places to both McLarens.

Up front, Verstappen stretched his stint, then came in on Lap 26. A tidy 3.0s stop sent him back out ahead of Russell with 1.5 seconds in hand.

Lap 26–40

The race finally settled.

Verstappen led on fresher tyres after his Lap 26 stop. Russell held second, driving around the steering imbalance that had followed him from qualifying. Norris ran third on the road at this stage, searching for rhythm, though his eventual exclusion would later remove him from the fight.

Hulkenberg and Hamilton briefly climbed into the top six on long-hard runs. Antonelli, helped by his early VSC stop, jumped forward into the net top ten but carried the five-second penalty.

The key move came on Lap 35. Norris cleared Russell with DRS into the chicane and chased Verstappen. On-track it mattered, even if the classification would later say otherwise.

Every time Norris tried to cut the gap, Verstappen rebuilt it.

Behind them, Antonelli held Piastri and Leclerc at bay on tyres that had crossed the thirty-lap mark. Smart deployment. Calm judgement. Piastri tried more than once. Nothing landed.

Lap 41–50: Final phase

In the final stint, Verstappen stretched away for good. Six seconds. Ten. Twelve. Norris was still second on the road, but the balance faded as the stint wore on.

Russell hung onto third in spite of the steering imbalance.

Antonelli somehow kept his pace alive deep into the hard stint, protecting Russell’s podium and blunting Piastri’s late charge. Even with the penalty coming, it was the drive that locked the midfield story in place.

By Laps 47–48, Norris hit the cliff and Verstappen soared clear by almost sixteen seconds.

Antonelli even set the fastest lap of anyone on Lap 50.

Verstappen took the flag with margin. Norris and Piastri crossed the line second and fourth, but both results were later removed for the post-race technical breach. Russell inherited P2, Antonelli moved up to P3, and the entire order shifted once the final classification landed.

Final Classification – F1 Las Vegas Grand Prix 2025

Tyres & Strategy

Las Vegas didn’t try to trick anyone. It settled into a straight Medium–Hard race from the moment the lights went out, shaped by a cleaner track surface than Friday and tyre compounds that held on far longer than last year’s fragile outing.

Most of the field opened on the C4 Medium. Five drivers — Hulkenberg, Bortoleto, Albon, Colapinto and Hamilton — gambled on the C3 Hard. Antonelli went the other way entirely, starting on the Soft before switching early under the VSC. That one decision shaped the entire midfield story, dragging him into the fight across a stint that should never have worked as well as it did.

The Medium delivered the balance. The Hard delivered the range.
Both compounds were strong enough that the opening stints stretched naturally, without the graining that haunted 2024. By Lap 25, Verstappen had enough margin to pit for Hards and still emerge ahead of Russell with clean air to work with. That was the pivot point. From there, the race stabilised.

The top eight finished on the Hard. Hulkenberg, ninth, was the best of the reverse runners after boxing late for Mediums. Antonelli completed all but two of the fifty laps on the C3 with more than thirty of them while defending Piastri and Leclerc. Gasly ran a similarly long Hard stint to reach the flag. Ocon stretched the Medium the furthest, covering twenty-seven laps before swapping to the Hard for the run home.

One stop. No drama. Just a race decided by clean air, offsets, and the ability to manage pace without ever needing to back off.

Midfield Voice

Haas – Steady Strength, Just Outside the Points

MoneyGram Haas F1 Team left Las Vegas with P11 and P12. No points this time, but the execution was clean and the pace was better than the result suggests.

Oliver Bearman:
“The opening lap was very good and we were in a strong spot. After that I struggled to find a rhythm. The car was difficult in the low-speed corners and I was making mistakes trying to keep cars behind. It got better on the hard tyre but I didn’t change the aero balance, which I normally would. The pace was okay, but we had some graining on the final stint.”

Esteban Ocon:
“There were a lot of positives. We executed the race well but didn’t quite have the pace for points. I fought Lewis the whole race and thought maybe I could get him in the end. Five more laps might have been enough. A solid drive, just not the reward we wanted.”

Ayao Komatsu, Team Principal:
“With no FP2 running and a wet qualifying, it was tricky to judge degradation, but we reacted well. A one-stop was the right call. Ultimately it was qualifying and a small lack of pace that left us P11 and P12. If we can finish there on a tougher weekend, we’re motivated for Qatar and Abu Dhabi.”

Alpine – Race Ended at Turn 1

Alpine’s night unravelled within seconds. Both cars picked up rear damage in the Turn 1 chain reaction and the race never recovered from there.

Pierre Gasly:
“Our race was over after a few hundred metres. I was hit, spun, and the rear of the car took heavy damage. A shame because we had genuine pace all weekend and could have fought for points.”

Franco Colapinto:
“I tried to avoid the chaos but got hit from behind. The floor and diffuser took a big hit and from that moment the car felt nothing like it had earlier in the weekend. Poor balance, no rear grip. A tough one to take.”

Flavio Briatore:
“Both drivers suffered significant rear damage through no fault of their own. This track is unique. We regroup and head to Qatar, which should suit us much better.”

Visa Cash App RB – Points Scored, One Got Away

One car in the points. One car wiped out early. The pace was strong, the execution tidy, and Vegas marked another step forward.

Isack Hadjar:
“I’m happy with the race. We extracted everything. We expected more graining so we were conservative, but the pace was strong and it’s nice to be rewarded with four points. One of our best weekends of the year.”

Liam Lawson:
“It was extremely slippery into Turn 1. The pack checked up, I had nowhere to go, and once I hit the brakes the incident was unavoidable. We should have had two cars in the points today, which makes it frustrating.”

Alan Permane, Team Principal:
“A strong weekend. Isack didn’t put a foot wrong and brought home important points. Liam was unlucky. In a straightforward one-stop race, recovering from a front wing change is almost impossible. The car is quick and we head to Qatar confident.”

From the Podium

Coffee Corner Take – F1 Las Vegas Grand Prix 2025 Race Review

Vegas didn’t just sharpen the title picture. It stripped it back.

Verstappen threw everything at keeping this fight alive. He owned the start. Held the pace. Managed the risk. It looked like the version of Max you get when a season is on the line. If he needed a night to keep the door open, this was it.

Norris leaves Nevada without the cushion he thought he had. The points he carried over the line are gone. His lead sits at 390. The gap is smaller. The pressure is bigger. And suddenly the room for error has vanished.

Piastri loses even more. What looked like a stabilising weekend turns into a hit. His 366 now ties him with Verstappen. He stays ahead on the sheet only until you check countback. Verstappen’s wins move him into second.
The lion is hunting now, and his prey are wounded.

Two rounds left.
The arithmetic has changed.
So has the mood.

Vegas didn’t settle anything. It exposed the edges. It showed where this fight sits once the penalties land and the pieces move again.

McLaren leave with nothing. Verstappen leaves with a lifeline. And the title picture now feels tighter than it has at any point since Zandvoort.

The road to Qatar just got heavier for everyone in papaya.