2025 F1 Las Vegas Grand Prix: As it happened - Verstappen hits the jackpot, Norris extends lead

Vegas might be the home of gambling, but for Norris, Piastri and Verstappen, they leave Nevada with stakes higher than ever.

Verstappen's win keeps him in range of a title tilt with just Qatar and Abu Dhabi now left to go - a testament to some stellar performances by the Red Bull driver since the summer break.

Norris, however, remains in control despite - by his own assertion - not a great performance en route to second.

'Not a good performance' is still out-performing Piastri, whose 30 point margin looks very difficult to overcome with just two races and one sprint to go now.

Elsewhere, Antonelli was my driver of the day for his charge to sixth via a mammoth 48-lap stint on those hard tyres - penalty aside, he was fourth on the road on merit too.

Sainz makes the best of his strong qualifying to get some points on the board for Williams, as does Hadjar in eighth.

Hulkenberg and Hamilton meanwhile do a fine job on the hard tyre from the start to go long and come away with some points for ninth and tenth at the finish.

In the overall standings, Hadjar moves ahead of Hulkenberg for ninth overall, while Sainz rises to 11th ahead of Bearman

The fireworks are ringing out across Las Vegas as the top three gets whisked off to the podium in a pink Cadillac made out of lego.

Yup, it's as weird as it sounds. And this is an awfully long lap of honour in Las Vegas to be sat looking awkward in it...

A solid recovery to second place for Norris despite the rather clumsy start that consigned him to third place for much of the evening.

Second place versus another lacklustre results of fourth for Piastri means the gap between the two rises to 30 points with a max of 58 points up for grabs still.

It's worth noting, however, that while Verstappen's win still leaves an uphill task in a title battle context, he is just 12 points shy of Piastri in second overall

A clinical and faultless performance by Max Verstappen there as his title defence lives to fight another race.

He can take solace from the fact that it was his fierce reputation for aggression off the line that caused Norris to over-compensate in defending, only to run wide and hand the position to the Dutchman through Turn 1.

From here Verstappen was never truly threatened

A herculean performance from Antonelli to come across the line in fourth place, even if he has to give up two positions worth five seconds to a very thankful Piastri and Leclerc

Fourth for Piastri isn't what the Australian needs as he cedes six more points to Norris at the top of the standings

The final lap is underway and Verstappen is closing on his sixth victory of the season.

Norris is in preservation mode and has now dropped some 14secs off the lead, while Russell is a further six seconds behind.

It's actually a crying shame that Antonelli has that penalty for what was a very minor infraction at the start of the race.

The Italian began down in 17th place but driven a spectacular 47-lap stint in a 50-lap race to get himself all the way up to a deserved fourth place on pure pace alone.

It's a shame that penalty will cost him two positions because he has comfortably seen off Piastri and Leclerc anyway despite his very second-hand rubber

Piastri seems to have eased up on the effort of trying to take fourth place on the road from Antonelli knowing full well his penalty will have the desired effect anyway.

Leclerc's intensity on the rear of the McLaren also seems to have abated as they appear destined to finish fifth and sixth on the road, but fourth and fifth on the results sheet

That said, Sainz is working hard to stay within five-seconds of Antonelli in anticipation of his impending penalty, which will be applied after the race.

He is currently +6.1secs off the Mercedes but does have fresher tyres to get that gap down - if he does, he'll lift to sixth

Save for this simmering battle for fourth between Antonelli, Piastri and Leclerc, there are big gaps between the rest of the drivers as they settle into what will probably be their final positions.

That's good news for Sainz, Hadjar, Hulkenberg and Hamilton, who are all well on course to score points today from seventh down to tenth place as they circulate on their own, several seconds either side of their position.

Full credit to Antonelli - his hard tyres have completed all but three laps in this race, yet he is steadfastly keeping Piastri and Leclerc at bay right now.

Even if Antonelli doesn't pit for new tyres, thus serving that five-second penalty in the process, he will have five seconds added onto his final race time.

No doubt some hard strategising going on down at Mercedes

Antonelli is still holding out in fourth place and we're now getting into a phase of his race where it might be worth him wrestling the Mercedes to the flag instead of pitting.

That's annoying news for Piastri, whose first wave of attack finds himself getting firmly rebuffed by the Italian.

And that now means the looming Leclerc is right back onto the tail of Piastri now too.

Alex Albon becomes the third retirement in this race - the Thai racer was running last after an unscheduled stop to repair his front-wing.

It seems there could be more damage to that Williams than initially feared. 

Worryingly for Albon, that's a sixth consecutive failure to score points now

So, Norris is into second place and it is worth another three points for his troubles. 

With 14 laps remaining, Norris faces down a +5.5s gap to Verstappen up ahead - it's going to be a tough ask for Norris to reel the Red Bull in from here

Norris has crept onto the tail of Russell at last and he has just been given the green light to go ahead and fight his countryman for second position

1- Verstappen

2- Russell

3- Norris

4- Antonelli (still to pit a second time)

5- Piastri

6- Leclerc

7- Sainz

8- Hadjar

9- Hulkenberg

10- Hamilton

Piastri was the big winner in that pit-stop cycle, jumping from sixth to what will be fourth when Antonelli pits.

Sainz lost out, dropping from fourth to what will be sixth.

Shout out to Hulkenberg though, he ran very long as the highest qualifier starting on the hard tyres, and is now running inside the points in ninth now he has fitted the mediums.