The world championship fight is still alive for Red Bull Racing’s Max Verstappen

Max Verstappen’s unlikely title challenge was kept alive on Saturday night under the Las Vegas lights after dominant victory and post-race disqualifications.

While the Dutchman romped to an easy victory, his 69th career win, it was title rival Lando Norris in pole position heading into the final two rounds after his second place finish.

But Norris and McLaren team-mate Oscar Piastri, who finished fourth, were both later thrown out of the race for having skid-blocks worn too far. It means with two races to go, Norris leads the championship battle by 24 points from Piastri, with Red Bull Racing’s Verstappen level on on points with the Australian.

Should Norris out-scorer the pair by two points in Qatar next time out, he will be crowned world champion ahead of the season finale in Abu Dhabi.

“For the next few races we just need to do the best we can and keep trying to win as many races until the end of the year and maximise everything we can,” said Verstappen, who has closed the gap from over 100 points.

“Everything went really smooth today and we did well to keep the tyres alive. It was great to get the win here and we had a very good day. The last few laps were very strong, we made no mistakes and had good communication with the pit wall throughout

“It was a good race for us, we had good pace and everything worked really well.”

It was another forgettable weekend for team-mate Yuki Tsunoda though, who started from the pit-lane and could only finish 14th.

He said: “Everything feels like it is going against me lately and weekends aren’t going as we planned. The changes we made to the car overnight didn’t impact the pace as much as we had wanted either. A lot of things are happening out of my control lately, but I can only control what I can control.

“The pace is getting there for me and I am feeling more comfortable and confident with the car. I will just keep doing what I am doing.”