Max Verstappen wins F1 2024 title as Lando Norris bid finally ended at Las Vegas GP

There were plenty of routes to championship success at the Las Vegas Grand Prix for Max Verstappen, who knew he could secure the 2024 F1 title by finishing ahead of Lando Norris

Max Verstappen is a four-time Formula 1 champion after finally ending the challenge of Lando Norris.

The Dutchman most likely needed to finish ahead of his McLaren rival at the Las Vegas Grand Prix in order to secure the title with two rounds to go. And he got the job done with a mighty drive while Norris was struggling for pace.

Verstappen becomes the fifth driver in the sport's history to win titles in four consecutive seasons, after Juan Manuel Fangio, Michael Schumacher, Sebastian Vettel and Lewis Hamilton. He joins Vettel and Alain Prost on the all-time list of drivers with four championship successes to their name.

Though he completed the job in Las Vegas, Verstappen will look back on his remarkable victory at the Brazilian Grand Prix earlier in November as the one which made the difference. Up until the Sao Paulo race, Norris had been steadily closing the gap.

The Brit was given a dream chance to take a huge chunk out of the Red Bull racer's championship advantage when he qualified on pole in Brazil while Verstappen was 17th on the grid. But the latter produced one of the best performances of his career in the rain to win while Norris slipped back to sixth.

It left his title hopes hanging by a thread and, even if Verstappen did not get the job done in Las Vegas, it was always highly unlikely that Norris would be able to close the gap with just two more races remaining in 2024.

But his challenge was ended once and for all in Las Vegas. Verstappen lined up fifth on the grid, one place ahead of Norris, giving the McLaren driver the chance to keep his slim title hopes alive if he could get ahead of his championship rival and outscore him by a decent number of points.

But it became swiftly clear at the start of the race that he just did not have the pace in his car to do that. Verstappen made swift progress to get ahead of Pierre Gasly and the two Ferraris that started in front to climb to net second place in the race, behind only pole-sitter George Russell who was demonstrating mighty pace in his Mercedes.

Norris would have loved to have been able to cut through in the same manner but just did not have the speed he needed. Within 20 laps of the start of the race, his team chief executive Zak Brown was admitting that McLaren could not match the likes of Mercedes and Ferrari for pace and it became swiftly clear that their challenge for the drivers' title was coming to an end.

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