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Red Bull driver Max Verstappen clinched his fourth successive Formula 1 title in the Las Vegas Grand Prix, dominated by Mercedes and won by George Russell.
With only remaining title rival Lando Norris struggling in a distinctly uncompetitive McLaren, Verstappen - needing just to finish ahead - had him well-covered off all race, cruising to the finish to clinch the crown with two rounds to spare despite dropping off the podium in the final stint.
Driving for a Red Bull team that's on course to finish just third in the world constructors' championship, Verstappen became the fifth-ever driver to claim four consecutive F1 titles - joining the likes of Juan Manuel Fangio, Michael Schumacher, Sebastian Vettel and Lewis Hamilton in doing so.
A charging Hamilton was a factor in the win battle despite starting 10th after a mistake-laden qualifying, but Russell - who controlled proceedings as his team-mate charged through the field - ultimately held on with a comfortable advantage.
Front row starter Carlos Sainz going ever-so-slightly wide into Turn 1 while covering off Pierre Gasly meant it was Sainz's team-mate Charles Leclerc who ducked down the inside of both and emerged as Russell's big threat in the early laps.
By the third lap he was all over the Mercedes man and by the fourth lap he was mounting a serious attack at the end of the long straight, before having another go through the main straight - with Russell rebuffing both attempts.
But just as Leclerc going into the lead looked a foregone conclusion, his pace absolutely cratered due to medium tyre graining, dropping him into the clutches of first Sainz and then Verstappen - who had worked his way past a dropping Gasly - in virtually no time.
He was running multiple seconds off the pace when he pitted, and team-mate Sainz's stint followed the exact same blueprint, his performance likewise cratering and leaving him vulnerable to an attack from Verstappen.
By the time the Dutchman worked past the other Ferrari, Russell was nearly eight seconds in the clear. The first round of pitstops maintained a status quo among the leaders, but Hamilton in the other Mercedes was now a factor after a charging first stint taken long - which released him onto the back of Norris post-pitstop and allowed him to quickly clear the McLaren driver and soon attack Leclerc for fourth.
The hard tyre allowed Leclerc to maintain a better pace into the stint, meaning he was able to successfully fend off Hamilton until they arrived at the second pit window - which for that lead group was opened by a sudden performance fall-off for Sainz instead.
So badly did it tail off that Ferrari ordered Sainz to let Leclerc through - something he did while managing to stay ahead of Hamilton - a few corners before he took to pit entry.
But with Hamilton tucked in behind him, Sainz had to stay out at the last second, returning to the track. He asked his team for an explanation and was told the crew was simply not ready to service him, Sainz responding with an agitated "wake up, guys, come on!".When he pitted the following lap - lap 28 of 50 - he was already behind Hamilton, who then drove home Mercedes' sublime performance by reeling in and quickly overtaking Verstappen for second.
Leclerc took his second stint marginally further than his main rivals and came out behind Sainz. Both of them would work their way past Verstappen as the race wound down, with Sainz celebrating an eighth podium in his final season with Ferrari.
Up ahead of them, Hamilton had such a potent final stint that he more than halved Russell's lead of double-digit seconds, briefly threatening an intra-Mercedes fight for the win despite running on older hards. Russell ultimately stemmed the mounting time losses, going on to win by a comfortable 7.3 seconds.
McLaren looked a distant fourth in the fight of F1's four best teams here, with Oscar Piastri's five-second penalty for incorrectly positioning himself in the grid box making no difference whatsoever to the outcome.
He finished seventh behind team-mate Norris, who did pick up a fastest lap point thanks to an extra pitstop at the end - but McLaren's lead in the constructors' standings has been cut down significantly anyway, now standing at 24 points over Ferrari.
Nico Hulkenberg had a strong third-to-last race for Haas, returning it to sixth place in the constructors for now with a last-stint overtake on the RB of Yuki Tsunoda.
It put Haas one point ahead of Alpine in the standings, thanks to a deeply messy race for a French manufacturer.
Gasly, who had started third, was never going to hang on to that place in the race, but was denied a likely hefty haul of points by a mechanical failure, while team-mate Esteban Ocon effectively served an impromptu drive-through early in the race as he came into the pits and saw no mechanics were prepared to service him with a tyre change, so headed back out.
Red Bull's second driver Sergio Perez salvaged a single point from 10th for the weekend, pulling off an eye-catching two-in-one overtake on Kevin Magnussen and Liam Lawson before finishing close behind Tsunoda's RB.
That ninth-place finish keeps RB well in the hunt for sixth in the constructors' standings - four points down on Haas and three on Alpine.
What briefly looked like Sauber's best opportunity to score points all season fizzled out, Zhou Guanyu running in the top 10 at some points but unable to make up enough ground after his final pitstop.
But it was a better race for that team than Williams, which briefly looked like it would rescue something from a bruising Vegas weekend, only to have to call Alex Albon into the pits with a technical issue while Albon was in the mix for points.
