Formula 1 recap: Liam Lawson finishes Las Vegas Grand Prix well back after early damage
All the action from the Las Vegas Grand Prix.
That will do it for the blog
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I'll leave you with Alex Powell's report of the afternoon's action.
The drivers' championship picture
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Norris maintains his lead with another 18 points taking his season total to 408. Piastri moves to 378 for a fourth-placed finish.
With 25 points for the win, Verstappen moves to 366.
There are two grands prix and a sprint race left to decide it.
Max Verstappen on claiming his 69th win
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"I either have to stay at 69 or I have to go to 169, because it's actually quite a cool number"
'It was my f-up'
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Norris says he got the braking wrong into turn one to open the door for Verstappen on the first lap.
From Lawson's team radio
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Engineer: Not the Sunday we were hoping for. We’ll pick up the pieces. And do it all again in Qatar mate."
Lawson: “Sorry, guys, that was on me. Didn’t mean to do that, so apologies.”
Engineer: “A racing incident, you had to avoid the car in front. Very difficult. It was investigated and confirmed it was a racing incident. Tricky one to manage, as always."
Lawson: "Yeah, but it didn’t need to happen. Honestly, I wasn't trying to push the braking. They just checked up, I wasn’t expecting it, so sorry."
Disappointment for Lawson
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After such an impressive performance in qualifying to start the Grand Prix in sixth, Lawson's race in Las Vegas was effectively over after one turn.
George Russell appeared to lock up in front of him, which gave Lawson nowhere to go. He tried to avoid contact with Russell - and avoid having teammate Isack Hadjar at risk of driving into the back of his car - which instead saw the Kiwi go into the side of Oscar Piastri.
Damage to the front wing saw him lose pace and places quickly and having to pit early put him at the back of the grid.
Max Verstappen wins the Las Vegas Grand Prix
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A good start, taking advantage as Norris went wide at turn one and leading for the rest of the race, the Dutchman goes back-to-back in Vegas and stays alive in the Drivers' Championship.
Norris finishes second - just ahead of George Russell, who rounds out a strong weekend with a podium.
Final lap
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Lawson has been lapped.
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With two laps to go it looks like Lawson is going to finish in the same position as last year's Las Vegas Grand Prix. He's more than 8s behind Gasly.
Four laps to go
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Colapinto is now a lap behind the leaders, and 5s behind Lawson.
At the back
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Tsunoda might be on older, medium tyres, but he's maintaining his lead over Lawson. It remains about 11s.
Tsunoda could go past Alpine's Pierre Gasly though, with the gap between those two inside 1s.
"Just do more"
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That's the advice from Norris' race engineer after the McLaren driver asks what he needs to do to gain on Verstappen.
Lap 43
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Not a lot of change at the top here. Verstappen is maintaining a 5s lead - and building on it - ahead of Norris.
Russell is in third, with teammate Antonelli in fourth and McLaren's Piastri in fifth.
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Lawson is 11s behind Tsunoda
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Lawson gets around Colapinto finally and into 16th.
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Lawson is told Colapinto is ahead on old medium tyres and is one second a lap slower than him. The battle for last place is not what Lawson would have had in mind coming into this weekend. Huge missed opportunity.
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Lawson just 0.7s behind Colapinto. Can he get past the Alpine? He certainly needs to; Colapinto has fallen almost 9s behind the next closest car, Yuki Tsunoda.
Another driver out
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Unsurprisingly, it's Albon calling it a day. He had already pitted three times.
Lap 36
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Albon goes into the pits against and serves his 5s penalty. He comes out 25s behind Lawson.
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Norris gets past Russell and now he'll go try to chase Verstappen down. He's currently 4.9s behind the Red Bull star.
Lap 34
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Good racing here between Norris and Russell; the latter looking to defend his spot at second.
Norris should get the jump on him with the straight here.
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Albon goes ahead of Colapinto - Lawson now 2.4s behind the Alpine driver.
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Alex Powell: Lawson is 4.5s back from Albon here - but remember the Williams also has a five-second penalty for his clash with Hamilton earlier.
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Nico Hulkenberg also goes into the pits. He was running fourth and comes back out in ninth.
Lap 30
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Hamilton finally pits. He's had a great drive so far today after starting in 19th. He comes out of the pits in 10th.
And back to the back
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Lawson pits for a second time and will come out at the back of the pack again on a new set of hard tyres.
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Alex Powell: Also worth noting, Tsunoda is close to 40s back from Verstappen. The metric Red Bull use to assess its drivers is gap to teammate, and once again, Tsunoda is nowhere to be seen as Verstappen fights for wins.
Lap 29
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Lawson moves up a position, passing Yuki Tsunoda's Red Bull
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"You have a lot of rear locking under braking," Lawson is told. "If that bothers you, offset one," suggests his engineer, referring to tuning adjustments Lawson can make to try and save his small hopes of recovering anything from today.
"A lot of rear locking in Turn 14," Lawson is told.
Halfway through the race
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Colapinto pits and comes out on medium tyres behind Lawson in 17th.
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Alex Powell: The track temperature has now dropped to 16 degrees. It's going to be very hard for drivers to get any grip in their tyres from here.
Lap 25
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Max Verstappen makes his way into the pits - he comes back out in the lead, just ahead of George Russell.
Elsewhere, Lewis Hamilton is up into fifth - yet to pit though.
Lap 24 - yet to pit...
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Verstappen, Norris, Hulkenberg, Hamilton, Ocon, and Colapinto
Liam Lawson update
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The Kiwi continues to run in 17th, just under 2s behind the car in front of him - Alpine's Pierre Gasly.
"I'm just sliding everywhere," Lawson said on the radio. He's struggling for grip and making no inroads to Gasly ahead.
Five second time penalty
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Albon is judged to be the driver at fault there and he's hit with the consequences.
Hamilton and Albon under investigation
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That's for the collision a few laps ago.
Lap 18
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Russell pits for hard tyres. Bearman follows suit.
Verstappen leads, with Norris into second now.
VSC ends - lap 17
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Piastri gets past Hadjar straight away and moves into sixth.
Virtual safety car
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A bit of debris on the track
Another collision
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Alex Albon (Williams) and Lewis Hamilton (Ferrari) come together. Albon gets damage to his front wing and has to pit. He rejoins the race last - which sees Lawson move into 17th.
Five second time penalty
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Antonelli has been pinged for moving at the start before the lights went out.
Man on the move
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Charles Leclerc (Ferrari) has moved up four places into fifth. He's charging early on.
Norris with tyre issues
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The drivers' championship leader is said to be complaining of tyre graining.
Antonelli under investigation
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He's been flagged for moving before the starting lights were out.
Lap 10
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Lewis Hamilton has clawed his way up to 12th after starting 19th. Solid start for the Ferrari driver.
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Alex Powell: In front of Lawson, both Antonelli and Tsunoda have pitted for hards. Going long is clearly a valid strategy on this circuit.
Lap 9
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Perhaps a bit of tyre management going on here and Russell falls a bit further back from Verstappen.
No further action
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Both Liam Lawson and Oscar Piastri have been cleared by the race stewards.
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Alex Powell: The only real hope from here is that Lawson goes long, possibly to the end of the race, on these tyres. The track conditions would hopefully be cold enough that his tyres don't wear too badly, but it's still a huge ask to get anything from here.
Lap 6
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Things seem to have settled down a little bit, with Verstappen leading from Russell - the Brit putting plenty of pressure on though. Norris is back in third
Lawson pits
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He's in and out, moving onto the hards and with plenty of work to do as he runs in 18th.
Two drivers out!
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Lance Stroll (Aston Martin) and Gabriel Bortoleto (Sauber) have both retired from the race after colliding - also into turn one I believe.
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Lawson appeared to have nowhere to go into turn one and ploughed into the front wheel of Piastri. Russell appeared to lock up and take the racing line away from Lawson, who looked set to crash one way or another.
The stewards have noted the collision.
Lawson plummeting down the order
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The damage to his car is making life very hard. He's fallen down to 15th before the virtual safety car comes out.
Yellow flag
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Debris on the track. Tsunoda, Bortoleto pit for hard tyres
Lawson holds onto sixth
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Looks like he's got damage to the wing on the front of his car though... he'll have to pit very early.
Carnage at turn one
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Liam Lawson and Oscar Piastri collide - and there were plenty of those impacted there. A bit on in Vegas.
Light's out!
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The Las Vegas Grand Prix is under way, with Lando Norris getting a good jump but Verstappen gets through as Norris goes wide
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Alex Powell: Track temperature has already dropped from 29 to 25 degrees. It's only going to get colder the later we get into the night.
Who's on what?
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We've got five drivers starting on hard tyres (Hulkenberg, Colapinto, Albon, Bortoleto and Hamilton) and one on softs (Antonelli).
Everyone else is running mediums to start.
Track temperature
Alex Powell
First measurements are in, and the track is a surprisingly warm 29 degrees!
Last year, that figure was in the teens. That will - hopefully - allow for the drivers to get some heat into their tyres, and pull off some overtakes on the long straights.
In the standings...
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If McLaren's Lando Norris finishes with nine more points than Red Bull's Max Verstappen, it will end the latter's hopes of clinching another world title.
Norris leads the drivers' championship with 390 wins, ahead of teammate Oscar Piastri on 366 and Verstappen on 341.
Another top-10 start for Liam Lawson
Christopher Reive
Only once this season has Lawson qualified in the top 10 and not scored points, which bodes well for the Kiwi. The Vegas track, however, has proven to be a tricky task for drivers in recent years.
This year's Grand Prix is being held two hours earlier than last year's, but they're still going to have to contend with the cool temperatures expected - the air temperature in Vegas is currently 17 degrees.
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Let's talk strategy
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It's going to be very interesting to see how the teams play things today. Because of the adverse weather in Vegas this week, we haven't seen anyone run on the hard tyres yet. But there is no rain forecast during the race today, so you would expect to see the hards make an appearance.
There are a few strategies being thrown around, but it seems like one where most of the drivers will start on mediums and switch to hards to try and run a one-stop race. Of course, a safety car or two could throw all strategy out the window. In both previous visits to Las Vegas, multiple drivers have had to retire from the race.
Good afternoon!
Alex Powell
Kia ora, and welcome to the Herald's live coverage of the Las Vegas Grand Prix.
We're still a couple of hours away from lights out, but the first bit of news is that Yuki Tsunoda will start from pit lane.
The Red Bull driver qualified 19th around this time yesterday, but has seen his power unit changed.
Other than that, the grid remains unchanged - for now.
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Las Vegas Grand Prix starting grid
- Lando Norris - McLaren
- Max Verstappen - Red Bull
- Carlos Sainz - Williams
- George Russell - Mercedes
- Oscar Piastri - McLaren
- Liam Lawson - Racing Bulls
- Fernando Alonso - Aston Martin
- Isack Hadjar - Racing Bulls
- Charles Leclerc - Ferrari
- Pierre Gasly - Alpine
- Nico Hulkenberg - Sauber
- Lance Stroll - Aston Martin
- Esteban Ocon - Haas
- Oliver Bearman - Haas
- Franco Colapinto - Alpine
- Alex Albon - Williams
- Kimi Antonelli - Mercedes
- Gabriel Bortoleto - Sauber
- Lewis Hamilton - Ferrari
Pit lane: Yuki Tsunoda - Red Bull
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Qualifying report
Liam Lawson showed his class in a wet and wild qualifying session for Formula One’s Las Vegas Grand Prix, and will start sixth on the grid.
For the eighth time this season, Lawson reached the third and final qualifying session (Q3), at a time where Red Bull are still to announce - publicly or privately - their driver pairings for 2025.
On a circuit where Lawson qualified 15th, and finished 16th last year, the Kiwi improved and improved throughout the session, and was never at risk of an early exit.
Starting sixth sees Lawson secure his second top 10 start in succession, after qualifying and finishing seventh in Brazil earlier this month.
Tellingly, only once this season has Lawson qualified in the top 10, and not scored points - with the only exception being when he was taken out by Williams’ Carlos Sainz in the Dutch Grand Prix.
What’s more, Lawson also outqualified Racing Bulls teammate Isack Hadjar, who will start eighth, despite gaining momentum to be promoted to Red Bull’s senior ranks next year.
In comparison, Lawson’s rival for a 2026 Racing Bulls seat, Yuki Tsunoda, will start Sunday’s race in 19th, after suffering his sixth Q1 exit since replacing the Kiwi at Red Bull just two races into 2025.
McLaren’s Lando Norris took pole position, on a weekend where he can take another step towards the Formula One world championship. Red Bull’s Max Verstappen will start alongside Norris, while McLaren teammate Oscar Piastri will start fifth, next to Lawson.
With rain falling, and a track with temperatures as low as 12 degrees, slippery conditions led to a treacherous affair - even seeing seven-time world champion Lewis Hamilton qualify last - Lawson’s composure in the wet stood out.
Taking to the track in Q1, Lawson’s first attempt to put in a timed lap was fruitless - as the Kiwi was forced to change his intermediate tyres to full wets.
So treacherous were conditions, only half of the drivers had set a time by the time the 10 minute warning sounded. Lawson’s first effort, 2m 02.407s, saw him temporarily jump to third on the leaderboard, albeit with the track improving underneath.
Those improving conditions saw Lawson continue to better his time - first to 2m 0.496s, and then 1m 58.188s - as teams faced a nervy wait to try and get competitive times in before the clock hit zero.
By the time all 20 drivers had posted a lap, Lawson had fallen into the drop zone, and sat 0.610s away from advancing into Q2.
With close to two minutes remaining, Lawson improved his time again, as his 1m 55.747s moved him 0.838s clear of an early exit.
As the clock counted down to its final minute, Haas’ Ollie Bearman hit the wall at turn 14 to trigger a yellow flag, before Williams’ Alex Albon did the same at turn 16.
Lawson improved once more, putting in a lap of 1m 54.828s, and advanced as the 10th fastest time, 1.392s clear of elimination.
After a brief delay for marshals to repair the barriers after Albon’s crash, Lawson wasted no time in Q2, again on full wet tyres, even if the rain had stopped.
Lawson’s first time in Q2, 1m 53.722s, shot him up to fourth, and more than two seconds clear of elimination once all remaining drivers had set a time.
His second lap in Q2, 1m 52.119s, put Lawson first, as the improving track saw drivers weigh up switching to intermediate tyres.
At the two minute warning, Lawson had gone even faster, setting a 1m 51.939s, to sit 0.912s clear of elimination as drivers began their final stints. As was the case with Q1, Lawson advanced without needing to go faster - even if he did to a 1m 51.621s - and set the sixth-best time of the session, to progress with 1.160s to spare.
Into Q3 for the eighth time this year, Lawson’s first lap of 1m 52.074s, was enough for fourth place by the time all drivers had set their first efforts.
With two minutes to go, Lawson had fallen to fifth, despite improving his time to 1m 49.367, giving the Kiwi one final lap to set his best mark of the session. But despite going even faster, to 1m 49.062s, other drivers pushed Lawson down to his starting position.
The Las Vegas Grand Prix begins at 5pm on Sunday (NZT).
Las Vegas Grand Prix starting grid
Alex Powell is a sports journalist for the NZ Herald. He has been a sports journalist since 2016.