Las Vegas GP: Max and Charles put on a real show in Las Vegas

The Las Vegas GP marks, and it's incredible to say it, race win number 18 of the season for Max Verstappen, as well as the 53rd of his career. The World Champion is therefore on par with Sebastian Vettel in the all-time ranking in Formula 1, and in front of him - pretty far away but not unattainable - there are only Lewis Hamilton (103) and Michael Schumacher (91).

Glenn Dunbar / Motorsport Images

Today, an amazing Charles Leclerc is on the podium with him, after remaining in the fight for victory until the end, and Sergio Perez, who was actually greatly helped by the race neutralisation timing with the Safety Car (twice!). Following the final classification, then - as usual - let's start with our analysis!

A race decided by straight line speed rather than pace?

The start of the race was marked by chaos, with Verstappen side by side and out of the track with poleman Leclerc, thus receiving a (fair in my opinion) 5-second time penalty. But it was in the middle of the field that the most important twists occurred, with Alonso and Sainz spinning (once again in turn 1) each on their own, and Lewis Hamilton at the back of the group. From then on, the vicissitudes of the 50 laps of Las Vegas and a similar race pace kept the last three drivers mentioned very close to each other until the chequered flag.

Glenn Dunbar / Motorsport Images

Further on during the first lap, a rather violent accident put an end to Lando Norris's race, and he was subsequently transported to the medical center for further checks but - apparently - without any significant physical problems.

At that point in the race, the first of the two Safety Cars became necessary: the opportunity to make a pit stop without losing race time was seized by various drivers, but in the end who benefited from it mostly were Perez and Stroll. In addition to them, as you can see from the graph provided by Pirelli, Sainz, Alonso and Bottas also dived into the pit lane: all the abovementioned drivers fitted with Hard tyres, with the dual aim of meeting the prescription of using at least two different compounds in the race and - if convenient - try to complete the 50 laps without coming into the pits once again.

The story of the race told us that this was not the case, since on lap 26 a new Safety Car deployment brought about the same scenario again, with the difference that this time 10 drivers opted to pit and change their tyres; but before talking about that, the first stint had some more exciting moments to offer...

The first of these occurred when Verstappen - already aware of the 5-second penalty he would have served during the first pit stop - started having troubles with his tyres, suffering from an annoying graining especially on the front left. The graining, probably induced by the thermal cycle that the Mediums mounted on the RB19 underwent during the race neutralisation, didn't clear up as the laps went by: on lap 16 Charles Leclerc even attacked and overtook him, taking the lead of the race.

Zak Mauger / Motorsport Images

The overtaking suffered immediately made the Red Bull pitwall understand that the time had come to change tyres on Max' RB19, and so it was, just a few corners later. The problem for Max was that the penalty served also made him fall behind the Mercedes of George Russell, who at that moment had a worse pace but still not easy to overtake: thus we arrive at lap 25, in which Max and George collided!

Jake Grant / Motorsport Images

Neither of the two reported extensive damage to their car, but the dynamics of the accident show how Russell, on the outside of Verstappen in the left corner that leads to the very long "Vegas strip", closed on his rival without giving him the space necessary to avoid the collision. The race direction, clearly of the same opinion, imposed a 5-second penalty on the English driver. But the most important effect of this contact for the purposes of the history of the Grand Prix was the Safety Car triggered by the resulting debris: the one who benefited most from it was once again Perez, while the driver who has the most to complain about the timing of the neutralization is Leclerc.

Until then clinging to the power of the Ferrari Power Unit and a set of Hard tyres still in good condition, Charles had now to deal with not one, but two Red Bulls equipped with freshly fitted tyres (always of the Hard compound). The 5-lap offset on the tyre life meant that the fight with Verstappen was in favour of the latter, who regained the lead only thanks to a lethal braking against the Monegasque.

The fight for second place between Leclerc and Perez, however, had a completely different outcome: after a mistake of the Ferrari driver that relegated him to third place on lap 43, he continued to push, and only on the last lap, with a decisive maneuver, did he steal the second place from the Mexican. We can object that the low downforce setup of the SF-23 (hence the higher top speed) and the length of the DRS zones helped Leclerc in this task, and it certainly wouldn't be a misinterpretation. But the truth is that the difficult part for Charles was the build up of the overtake, rather than its execution: recovering the 2.3 s gap that had been created by Perez wasn't at all easy, and I believe that only the Leclerc in today's shape could have succeeded in that...

"The race was fun and beautiful, also because we managed to stay in the DRS zone rather easily. For me it was an eventful race, but I enjoyed it. I always thought it would be a good race because of the long straight, and this it was never in doubt for me. It wasn't one of the easiest victories because I had to push from the start, but luckily we came back in front at the end"

Max Verstappen

"On the one hand there's the adrenaline of the last lap and the overtaking at the limit at the last corner, on the other the disappointment for the fact that today the victory could have come in terms of race pace. We were the fastest, but we had this Safety Car at the wrong time. Today I don't think there were any mistakes, and that's why there is a bit of a smile anyway, as a team we did everything well. I think today was the best Ferrari of the year in terms of race pace"

Charles Leclerc

"I was quite surprised by Charles, their speed was really high especially towards the end, and that made us vulnerable. When I overtook him [lap 43, ed.] I thought I would have been able to pull away from him, but I didn't manage to do so: then I got stuck there and that meant I lost position on Charles and also on Max"

Sergio Perez

Could Leclerc have won if the Safety Car hadn't regrouped the field behind him?

So let's get to the key question of the race: what chances would Leclerc have had of winning today if the Safety Car hadn't made him prey to the two Red Bulls? To find out, let's see at the laptimes plot, in which we've included the three drivers who ended up on the podium, together with George Russell's Mercedes and Oscar Piastri's McLaren, who was in fourth position for a long time but was then forced to make a pit stop in the final stages, to use the Mediums after having driven the entire race on the Hards.

Las Vegas GP - Analysis of the race pace held by Verstappen, Leclerc, Perez, Russell and Piastri

Las Vegas GP - Analysis of the race pace held by Verstappen, Leclerc, Perez, Russell and Piastri

As can be seen from the graph, the laptimes set by Leclerc - with the exception of the laps in which he was overtaken, visible as "spikes" - were on average 0.2 s slower than the winner. Considering that the gap on the latter was around 4.0 s at mid-race, and assuming a linear progression of the race one can imagine that Max would have had enough laps to catch up with the Monegasque.

However, what the data will never be able to tell us is what would have happened next: Charles could have strategically dosed the resources at his disposal to defend himself from the Dutchman once he had closed on him, for example. Or, considering how the race had started, even a collision between the two cannot be ruled out! In short, as often happens, thinking about hypothetical scenarios opens the way to a thousand possible outcomes different from what really happened.

"At the start I locked up several times and found dirty air in front, there was no grip on the inside of the track, which was very dirty. Restarting in last place we managed to recover up to P6, but I'm not very happy because I saw that the car he had the pace to fight for the podium or for the victory. Unfortunately that's how it went. A weekend to forget, but at least we got 8 points for the team... Now we're only 4 points behind Mercedes, we'll go to Abu Dhabi with the will to beat them even after what happened this weekend"

Carlos Sainz

What remains of this GP, however, is the good race pace shown by Ferrari: and it's a shame that Carlos Sainz was not involved, because I believe - as he himself does - that the fight for the podium would have seen him as fourth protagonist... But much has been said and written about his weekend, and even in his case the outcome of his weekend in Las Vegas cannot be changed.

Ocon and Stroll off the podium, but they ran a superlative race!

After having extensively discussed the race of the first three placed drivers, we must say a few words (of praise in this case) for those who immediately ended up behind the podium runners. Esteban Ocon, for example, led a masterful but largely overlooked race. The Frenchman started in P16 and recovered to P4, which gives bad publicity to his teammate, who instead started in P4 and arrived only in P11 at the chequered flag.

"This track is very suitable for overtaking, we knew we could use our straight line speed to pass and that's what we did. I'm super proud of the team, what they did this weekend was extraordinary, both in qualifying and in the race ... I hope we can continue like this until the end of the season, finishing in Abu Dhabi with a positive result"

Esteban Ocon

The positive thing about Esteban's GP was that the result obtained, unlike Perez, was entirely down to the pace he held, and not of favourable-timed pit stops... I believe that this kind of performance is an important asset for Alpine, which in 2023 doesn't find itself fighting for anything important, but which can rely on a tough driver on Sunday.

Mark Sutton / Motorsport Images

Also Lance Stroll (from P19 to P5) had an amazing race: thanks to a favourable strategy, he set laptimes good enough to bring home 10 points for his team, on the day in which his teammate Fernando Alonso had to settle for ninth position at the finish line. The Canadian is proving to be effective in this final part of the season, but to be honest his 2023 campaign was an overall failure, even though the internal competition took place against a 2-time World Champion like the Asturian driver...

Finally, both Williams, Haas, Alfa Romeo and Alpha Tauri finished out of the points, with the latter team at the back of the field almost the entire weekend after encouraging weekends between Austin, Mexico City and Interlagos. With only one race to go, it seems likely that the positions in the Constructors' Championship between those teams will stay as they are, to the benefit of the team from Grove.

A very long World Championship comes to its conclusion, with the last event in Abu Dhabi

Next weekend will mark the end of a very long World Championship, spread over 22 races (which would have been 23, if the flood near Imola hadn't forced the cancellation of the Emilia Romagna GP). As has been for almost fifteen years, the last Grand Prix will be held in the "boring" setting of Yas Marina, in Abu Dhabi.

As usual, see you on these pages to analyze what will happen in the United Arab Emirates, and I invite you to follow Race Analysis also through the social media pages on Instagram, X and YouTube. See you soon!

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