F1 champ Max Verstappen wins Las Vegas GP – his 18th victory of the season
Max Verstappen won the Las Vegas Grand Prix in dramatic fashion on Sunday, on a weekend marred by controversy in Sin City.
The Dutchman has already won this year’s championship, and yet made it 18 wins from 21 with only one round remaining.
Verstappen was forced to overcome a five-second time penalty during the race, as well as manage collisions with Charles Leclerc and George Russell.
Ferrari’s Leclerc passed Sergio Perez on the final lap to clinch second place, while British star Lando Norris ended up in hospital after a third-lap 180mph crash.
Lewis Hamilton finished seventh.
But much of the focus of the race was off the track, with the event hitting a number of problems over the weekend.
Controversially billed as the most expensive race in Formula One history, fans on Thursday only managed to see eight minutes of racing during the practice session, after a loose manhole cover on the street circuit tore a hole in Carlos Sainz’s Ferrari, bringing proceedings to a screeching halt.
It was more than five hours before cars were allowed back on the track, by which point fans had been made to leave.
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‘Shambolic’ Las Vegas Grand Prix halted
Hours before the race itself, organisers were hit with a class-action lawsuit filed on behalf of 35,000 fans who only got to see a few minutes of the event.
On Saturday, Verstappen compared the glitzy, celeb-packed event, to the fifth tier of English football, telling reporters after qualifying: “Monaco is Champions League and this is National League.”
He added: “When I was a little kid, it was all about the emotion of the sport that I fell in love with and not the show. As a real racer, the show shouldn’t matter.”
Verstappen had criticised the organisation of the race. Pic: AP
The event was packed with celebrities in and around the paddock, including the likes of Kylie Minogue, Justin Bieber and John Legend.
The Formula One season closes next weekend, with the final race taking place at Abu Dhabi’s Yas Marina circuit.
Verstappen and Red Bull colleague Perez have already tied up first and second place in the championship, while Hamilton sits in third.
Red Bull will take the season’s constructors trophy.
DHL Express is suspending some shipments to the US as Donald Trump’s new tariff regime takes effect.
From 21 April, shipments worth more than $800 (£603) to US consumers from “any origin” will be temporarily suspended.
New rules that came into effect at the start of April made such shipments subject to increased customs checks.
“This change has caused a surge in formal customs clearances, which we are handling around the clock,” said the parcel delivery service.
Shipments going from business to business worth more than $800 aren’t affected by the suspension, but DHL warned they may also face delays.
Shipments under $800 to either businesses or consumers are not impacted, but one British cycle manufacturer suggested its US customers may need to split orders over $800 into “smaller shipments” to avoid the red tape.
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From May, shipments from China and Hong Kong that are worth less than $800 “will be subject to all applicable duties”, according to the White House.
“President Trump is targeting deceptive shipping practices by Chinese-based shippers, many of whom hide illicit substances, including synthetic opioids, in low-value packages,” it said in a statement.
Until now, deliveries worth less than $800 didn’t incur any duties, which allowed low-cost companies Chinese like Shein and Temu to make inroads in the US.
Both have warned their prices will now rise because of the rule changes, starting on 25 April.
Anti-Trump protests took place across America on Saturday, with demonstrators decrying the administration’s immigration crackdown and mass firings at government agencies.
Events ranged from small local marches to a rally in front of the White House and a demonstration at a Massachusetts commemoration of the start of the Revolutionary War 250 years ago.
Thomas Bassford, 80, was at the battle reenactment with his two grandsons, as well as his partner and daughter.
He said: “This is a very perilous time in America for liberty. I wanted the boys to learn about the origins of this country and that sometimes we have to fight for freedom.”
At events across the country, people carried banners with slogans including “Trump fascist regime must go now!”, “No fear, no hate, no ICE in our state,” and “Fight fiercely, Harvard, fight,” referencing the university’s recent refusal to hand over much of its control to the government.
Some signs name-checked Kilmar Abrego Garcia, a Salvadorian citizen living in Maryland, who the Justice Department admits was mistakenly deported to his home country.
Read more: Donald Trump’s deportations explained
Pic: AP
People waved US flags, some of them held upside down to signal distress. In San Francisco, hundreds of people spelt out “Impeach & Remove” on a beach, also with an inverted US flag.
People walked through downtown Anchorage in Alaska with handmade signs listing reasons why they were demonstrating, including one that read: “No sign is BIG enough to list ALL of the reasons I’m here!”
Pic: AP
Protests also took place outside Tesla car dealerships against the role Elon Musk ahas played in downsizing the federal government as de facto head of the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE).
The protests come just two weeks after similar nationwide demonstrations.
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Organisers are opposing what they call Mr Trump’s civil rights violations and constitutional violations, including efforts to deport scores of immigrants and to scale back the federal government by firing thousands of government workers and effectively shuttering entire agencies.
The Trump administration, among other things, has moved to shutter Social Security Administration field offices, cut funding for government health programs and scale back protections for transgender people.
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