By Robert Haile

An action packed Las Vegas Grand Prix might have ended with another Max Verstappen victory but there was plenty of action.

Taking the lead at the start of the race Verstappen was handed a five second penalty for forcing Charles Leclerc off the track.

Leclerc passed Verstappen before the world champion took the penalty at the first round of pit stops.

It wasn’t until the final laps that Verstappen passed Leclerc to claim victory as Sergio Perez followed his teammate through for Leclerc to retake the position on the final lap of the race.

Verstappen said: “It was a tough one. I tried to go for it at the start, but I just ran out of grip. It put us a little bit on the back foot and I had to pass quite a few cars.

“You could clearly see the DRS was very powerful so, even when you took the lead, the car behind could still have an opportunity to come back at you which created quite a lot of good racing. Definitely a lot of fun.”

Perez completed the podium with Alpine’s Esteban Ocon coming from the back of the grid to finish fourth with Lance Stroll taking fifth for Aston Martin.

Ferrari’s Carlos Sainz moved up to sixth as Lewis Hamilton finished ahead of George Russell, who dropped to eighth after a five second penalty for colliding with Verstappen.

Fernando Alonso finished ninth for Aston Martin with McLaren’s Oscar Piastri taking tenth and the point for fastest lap.

After an impressive qualifying Alpine’s Pierre Gasly finished eleventh, Alex Albon’s Williams took twelfth with Haas’ Kevin Magnussen thirteenth.

Daniel Ricciardo’s AlphaTauri was in fourteenth with Alfa Romeo’s Zhou Guanyu fifthteenth, Logan Sargeant was sixteenth for Williams with Valtteri Bottas last of the runner in seventeenth.

McLaren’s Lando Norris race ended early as he crashed with Yuki Tsunoda and Nico Hulkenberg retiring late on.

The battle for second has been decided as Sergio Perez is 41 points ahead of Lewis Hamilton who has sealed third place in the drivers championship.

Fernando Alonso is in joint fourth with Carlos Sainz and Lando Norris is five points further back in sixth.

The Constructors Championship battle for second will go down to the wire as Mercedes holds on by four points over Ferrari in third while McLaren have an eleven point gap to Aston Martin.

The 2023 season comes to an end as Formula One heads to the sands of Abu Dhabi on November 24-26.