Las Vegas Grand Prix to be the biggest F1 Race of 2024 Season?

Max Verstappen, expected to dominate in his Red Bull much as he did last year, failed to win a single race between Austria and Monza.

In those six races, he only finished on the podium twice, which followed back-to-back wins in Canada and Spain. For the weekend in Italy, it was a sixth-place finish for the reigning world champion. In his place, Lando Norris, Oscar Piastri, and Charles Leclerc crowded the podium, with Norris closing the gap on the Drivers’ Championship table to 62. After Azerbaijan and Singapore, it's Las Vegas!

Still a rather hefty margin to overcome, should more major gains be made, the Las Vegas Grand Prix could end up being pivotal to the final standings.

Las Vegas has rapidly become one of the most intriguing races on the calendar. Last year, all of the pageantry, beaming lights, and massive crowds all helped to give a true Sin City feel to the race day. While this was the best outcome for the city and its personality, it could have just been another street race.

With Las Vegas essentially being the US brand of gambling, which is even shown among the Canada online slots with games like Vegas Cash Spins, the race weekend needed to embody that high-roller sensation. It’s because of this that Las Vegas was going to be another highly-anticipated in 2024, and one that Verstappen will be eyeing up.

In 2023, the Dutchman landed his sixth successive win in the penultimate race of the year, only further cementing his imperious run to the top of the standings and beyond. His winning margin, in the end, was 290 points. Six races away from Vegas – the third-from-last race this year – he’s only got a 62-point buffer.

Following the Monza race, Verstappen called his car an “undriveable monster,” signalling that neither he nor Red Bull can win back their titles if the car remains in its current state. Coming up are the races in Azerbaijan, Singapore, the US, Mexico, and Brazil before Las Vegas. In that time, the gap could close significantly.

Say Verstappen manages to get back to second in each of those races and Lando Norris wins them all, as well as a mirrored placing in the two sprints, the McLaren driver would be just 25 points back with Vegas, Qatar, and the UAE to come. Of course, this would rely on Norris getting his first back-to-back wins, and then continue to win.

Due to the difference between points awarded for positions, to make a true title challenge, Norris would need to win each race or Verstappen to finish outside of the top ten. That said, being 62 points back, Norris landing third and Verstappen finishing sixth – as in Monza – would keep a similar pace of seven points gained per race.

A couple more wins this season, and Verstappen could kill off any murmurs of a challenge to his throne. Given recent races, though, it looks like the momentum is with the upstarts who finished on the Monza podium.