Max Verstappen has said that he is hungry for more success after claiming his fourth consecutive Formula One world title at the Las Vegas Grand Prix. (More Sports News)
The Red Bull driver claimed the title by finishing fifth, ahead of championship rival Lando Norris, in the race which was won by George Russell of Mercedes.
Verstappen is now behind only Lewis Hamilton (seven), Michael Schumacher (seven) and Juan Manuel Fangio (five) in terms of world titles won, and the Dutchman has said he will aim for a fifth title in 2025.
"If you look to next year right now, I think it's going to be a proper battle between a lot of cars, but I'm hungry," said Verstappen, who secured the title with two races to spare.
"I'm going to enjoy this and there are still two more races that I want to do well. We take a little break, and we will try and go for it again next year."
It has been a challenging season for the Red Bull driver who won seven of the first 10 races in 2024, but has only recorded a single victory in 12 races since, allowing McLaren's Norris to mount a championship fight.
But Norris, who came in at sixth place on Sunday, is now 63 points behind the Dutchman with only 60 points left to race for this season.
"It’s been a long season. We started off amazing, and we were cruising, but then we had a tough run as a team, but we kept it together, we kept working on improvements and I couldn’t be more proud of everyone, what they have done for me," said Verstappen, the sixth driver to win four drivers' championships or more.
To stand here as a four-time world champion is something I never thought was possible. At the moment I’m feeling relieved but also very proud.
"It was a very challenging season, also as a person at times it was very challenging, and I had to be calm. In a way, I still prefer last season. I enjoyed it a lot, but I think this season has taught me a lot of lessons."
Verstappen became the youngest driver in F1 history at the 2015 Australian Grand Prix, where he raced for Toro Rosso at the age of 17.
After being promoted to Red Bull the following season, he won the Spanish GP on debut to become the youngest-ever race winner.
"I was just happy to be there [racing] and dreaming of potential victories and standing on the podium, just normal things that are already very difficult to achieve," the 27-year-old talked about his early years in F1.
"We then just got onto that run of a tough few years when we kept trying, and then we hit the ground running with the new concept.”
Verstappen is now only 10.5 points away from becoming the third driver in F1 history to cross the 3000-point mark after Hamilton (4829.50) and Sebastian Vettel (3098) and he will hope to achieve that milestone at next week's penultimate race in Qatar.
