F1 Grand Prix, GP Las Vegas, Las Vegas Street Circuit

The second-ever Las Vegas Grand Prix saw Mercedes claim their first one-two finish since the 2022 Sao Paulo Grand Prix, with George Russell heading his team-mate Lewis Hamilton in an eventful race. F1Technical's senior writer Balazs Szabo delivers what drivers had to say after he Nevadan F1 round.

Mercedes

"I’m really happy for the team. It was an exceptional performance by everyone this weekend to claim the 1-2. The car felt strong throughout and I had a really fun and enjoyable race. It felt great to be moving forward throughout as I had a long way to come back from!

"It is slightly bittersweet as if we had qualified where we should have yesterday, I think I could have won. Nevertheless, I didn’t think I would have been able to finish P2 today before the race so I’m very happy.

"Congratulations to George on a great drive to take victory. Congratulations must also go to Max too who claimed the title today. He’s done a fantastic job all year and is a deserving champion."

"To win in Las Vegas feels incredible! I’m so thankful for the team and happy for them that we got this win. We had great pace throughout and we were comfortable in the lead. You are always thinking that something might happen though, such as a safety car, but it was clean throughout.

"It was almost a perfect weekend as we took pole position, led almost every lap and took the 1-2. It was great to be up on the podium with Lewis; he drove a fantastic race to come through from P10. We couldn’t ask for more.

"I was meant to be flying out of here tonight but that’s not going to happen now! We will enjoy this night as a team as everyone deserves it. We will then sit down on Monday and go through the data to understand why we were so quick this weekend.

"Hopefully that can help us as we go into the final two races of the season in Qatar and Abu Dhabi. Finally, I’d like to say congratulations to Max on his fourth title. He is a deserving champion, has driven at an incredible level all year, and is the man we will all be chasing in 2025."

Ferrari

"I finished the race where I started it today, so it wasn’t that exciting, but if you look at the details it was quite an eventful one. Unfortunately, we degraded the fronts on the first stint on Mediums, then we were able to come back on the Hards which were working better.

"Big congratulations to Max (Verstappen). He deserves this championship title, he has had an amazing season and always maximised his results which has paid off for him.

"It gives us motivation to be even stronger next year and hopefully we can put him under some more pressure then. We will push hard in the last two races to try to finish the season ahead of McLaren."

"Considering the pace Mercedes had today I think we maximised the team's points, and even without the misunderstanding at the pit entry on my second stop I don’t think we would have been able to stay ahead of Lewis.

I was expecting to be more competitive after what we had seen in practice but we struggled quite a lot with graining today. We will keep fighting in the next races to keep the battle for the Constructors’ title open until the end. On to Qatar."

Red Bull

“It feels incredible to win here today and I am so proud to win the Championship. It has been quite a year and I’m proud of how we handled everything as a Team. We started off the season really strong and then it became quite tough; we never wanted to give up and got the best result we could, barely made any mistakes and that is what you need to win a title.

"We stuck together as a Team and we pushed back really hard and came back stronger. I’m super proud of everyone of what we achieved and also of myself with how we have worked together this season.

"Today I stayed calm and overtook drivers one by one. I tried to hang in there and do my own race and we pulled it off. Ultimately every Championship win is different, so that also makes it really special and it really means a lot to us. I am very proud to be part of this Team, especially as we are now celebrating our fourth World Title. It’s simply lovely."

“Congratulations to Max, I think he has had the best season I have ever seen from a driver, because a lot of the time we did not have the best car and Max made the difference a lot of weekends. The way he pushed the Team forwards, he was just a pure force and I think this has been the best year from him in the four we have been together.

"He has been tremendous, well done to him for all the success he has had, he deserves it. For me today, I think the pace was the positive thing about the race, but unfortunately, we may have got the strategy wrong because we went out on the hard initially when the track was at it’s worse.

"The degradation was a lot higher than expected and we used the best tyre in the beginning unfortunately, so I had to do quite a long stint on the medium. I feel like we are getting there but we need that extra jump, and I don’t feel like we are getting there so, hopefully for the coming weekends we can come back stronger."

McLaren

"Firstly, a big congratulations to Max on winning the Drivers’ Championship, he deserved it. He drove better than everyone over the course of the year, and rarely makes a mistake, so congrats to him for delivering once again.

“As for today, it was a reasonable race but we didn’t have any pace in the car, and experienced difficult, challenging conditions. It’s just not been our weekend, we struggled a lot. Clearly we have a lot of things we need to improve on the car for the future.

“We'll now turn our attention to next weekend and coming back stronger in Qatar, a circuit that should suit our car better than Vegas. All our focus is on these last two races.”

“A very difficult evening, we just struggled with the tyres, so there’s definitely some things to look at. I don’t think we hoped for a whole lot more than where we finished, but obviously the gap was a bit disappointing. OK points and hopefully the next two are a bit more fun for us.

“Finally, congratulations to Max on winning the Driver’s Championship. He’s fought well throughout the year and is well deserving of this fourth championship.”

Haas

“I’m very pleased; I think P8 is the best we could’ve achieved today, being the fifth best team. It was a clean race, good execution and as expected, it was very challenging on the tyre side with graining – on the front especially. That kept everyone occupied and busy, but we came out of that well and offset ourselves a little bit to our main competition and that worked well, and our pace was also decent.”

“We did a one-stop which wasn’t the right thing I think, and that’s why we’re P12. The pace was good on the hard tyre, just bad on the graining while on the medium. We struggled but kept going on, and lost everything, so had to build it back up on the hards. It didn’t feel like we got the best out of it.”

RB

Liam Lawson, 16th
“A difficult race today. The first stint wasn’t too bad, we were in and amongst the group around us, but it’s really hard to overtake, or at least it was for us. We tried to one stop and stretch it, but I think we tried to stretch that second stint a little too long and ended up boxing, coming out nowhere, it just didn’t work.

"We had similar issues today as we did yesterday, which is costing us quite a lot, but we’ll look into it and solve it for next week. Yuki’s done well to score points today, we need to make the most of the next two races and try to end strong.

"Congratulations to Max for four World Titles, what an achievement, he fully deserves it after all the tough fights this year. Very well deserved to him and the whole team.”

“It wasn’t an easy race today but we maximized all that we could, and I think as a team we made such a good step forward throughout the weekend. Obviously, I’m happy with finishing in the points today, but at the same time, it is pretty annoying as we lost a few points for the Constructors’ championship.

"I was feeling good and confident in the car, which is important, especially in a circuit like this, so I’m definitely happy with that and with the strong race pace we showed. There are two races left, we’ll be fighting hard until the end of the season and I’m already looking forward to racing in Qatar next week. Finally, big congratulations to Max for the win of his fourth World Championship. He has had an impressive year so far and he fully deserves to be crowned World Champion once again.”

Aston Martin

"The pace of the car was much better in the race for us and it was a nice surprise to be fighting in the points until the last few laps. The strategy was good, the pitstops were fast and I felt a little happier with the car in general. But there is no reward for eleventh position, and I think we deserved to score some points tonight. I'm looking forward to getting back into the car for Qatar as we try to find more performance. Also, I would like to congratulate Max [Verstappen] on winning his fourth Drivers' Championship, he has deserved to win this title."

"It was a difficult race as I had no radio from the first lap so couldn't communicate with the team. We'd planned to stay on the medium tyre for slightly longer at the start of the race, but I could feel it dropping off quickly and wanted to get on the hard tyre. I just couldn't get that message through to the pit wall.

"It meant that, when I did come in, the team wasn't prepared for the stop and so it cost us about 20 seconds. We knew it was going to be a tough race, but I think P12 could have been possible without the radio issues causing a slow stop. As a team, we know where we need to improve the car but there's still a lot of work to do to get there. Finally, congratulations to Max [Verstappen] on his fourth Championship title – it's really well deserved."

Williams

"We had a good car today and could’ve scored some good points, so it’s frustrating to retire with a suspected PU issue. We need to understand whether it was a similar problem to FP2 or the same issue we had in Singapore, but we’ll go away and try to get to the bottom of it. We’ve experienced some hard times this year, so we have to stay strong.

"From my side, these things happen but I wanted a good result for the team to try to repay everyone for the hard work they’ve put in during these really tough times. It wasn’t meant to be, so we’ll try to put our focus on the last two races of the season and hopefully, we can turn things around."

Franco Colapinto, 14th
"It was a tough weekend. Qualifying yesterday was feeling very good, and I was getting more and more comfortable but then I started the lap too close to Gasly, had a very messy last corner and unfortunately finished with a lot of damage.

"From where we started in the pit lane today, we were able to make some progress and, overall, did a good job. It was difficult to manage the tyres as we had a lot of graining. I must say a huge thank you to the garage team, who have been the heroes of the last couple of races.

"They had to rebuild a whole car yesterday for me to race today and it’s amazing how good they are. They are the best out there and I’m very grateful. We know more opportunities are coming next week in Qatar and we will bounce back."

Kick Sauber

Valtteri Bottas, 18th
"First of all, congratulations to Max for clinching the title tonight - it's quite the place to do it! For me, it was a very tough race as the tyres didn't last as long as we were hoping for. We had planned one stop, but it became clear that we could only make it to the end with a two-stopper.

"Starting on hards, only a one-stop strategy could have given me an advantage, but it didn't work out today, it caught us a bit by surprise. Pace-wise, I couldn't make enough progress, and I focused also on playing the team game to support Zhou. It was just a tough day out there, but the car seems to be making some progress so hopefully we can have two better weekends to end the season."

Zhou Guanyu, 13th
"Today was a good race for me. It’s been a while since we fought in the mid-pack near the top ten, and today, I feel we finally had a real chance. I believe we maximised the result we could have had with our pace, especially considering there was not a lot of drama happening ahead.

"Still, it's encouraging to be back where we were this weekend. It’s a step forward and it gives us confidence: things are looking more promising as we head to Qatar for the next round.”

Alpine

Esteban Ocon, 17th
“It was not our race today and we finished outside the points. We need to review what happened at our first pit-stop as it meant we effectively did a drive through the pit lane. It is a pity and we need to come back from this. We did not take the opportunity today where I was confident of at least being in the fight for points.

"We will review everything and aim to do better in Qatar next time out. Finally, congratulations to Max [Verstappen] on winning his fourth world title. I’m very happy for him, he deserves it as he’s done an amazing job all season.”

Pierre Gasly, DNF
“It’s a very disappointing feeling today for all of us in the team. After the high of yesterday with our Qualifying performance and strong grid position, today is a tough one to take.

"We knew the race would be challenging but, in the end, we weren’t able to truly show our potential after an issue with the car forced us to retire. We will learn from this and aim to carry our pace into Qatar next weekend.

"There is a lot to play for and we will do our best to come back stronger. Congratulations to Max [Verstappen] on winning the title. He has been driving at an incredible level all season and he thoroughly deserves this achievement.”