🔗 Share this article

Amid the excitement around the Las Vegas Grand Prix, Lando Norris is keeping a calm demeanor regarding his chances of claiming his maiden drivers' championship.

Norris currently has a two-dozen point lead over teammate Oscar Piastri and leads Max Verstappen by nearly fifty points, with only a maximum of eighty-three points up for grabs across the final three events. However, after pulling off a extraordinary recovery from 34 points behind his teammate following the Zandvoort race in August, Norris is focused on performing with the clinical precision that propelled him to the lead of the championship.

"It can quickly go in the other direction again as much as I don't want it to," he stated. "That's racing, you know. Sometimes you also have luck. Other times you also be unlucky. No matter what happens. It's no point getting excited or thinking about it. I still view it as something that's quite far away."

Norris has discovered his peak performance at a crucial moment—having struggled with the vehicle in the first part of the campaign—while Piastri has shed the disciplined, almost perfect ease that previously made him appear to be a future title winner. Importantly, Norris maintained a impressive level of composure all along, asserting despite challenges—such as his retirement from the Zandvoort race—that he would adhere to his gameplan and approach every outing with the same unwavering focus on specifics. It has paid off.

All the while, McLaren have worked hard to try to maintain a level playing field for their pair of racers, and it has on occasion been a rather torturous process, most notably at Monza when the squad instructed the Australian to surrender the runner-up spot to his teammate following he had lost the spot because of a slow pit stop. Some fans were unhappy with what was considered McLaren needlessly interfering with their competitors.

Norris has won the previous pair of races, in Mexico and São Paulo, and was booed on the podium at both, leaving him unfazed. "When you're leading, many individuals try to undermine you. They do not want to see you succeeding. I see it as a good thing," he said.

"It just amuses me. While standing on the winner's stage in Interlagos, I truly enjoyed it. The experience was very enjoyable. At last you sense that you are achieving something right.

"It doesn't bother me, as long as I win. If I believe I'm doing it the right way, which I feel like that's the case, so long as I feel like I'm putting effort into being who I am and similar principles, then I am not concerned with the rest of it."

Las Vegas, on the other hand, needs to be conquered, and it is not a track ideal for the McLaren. The layout has characteristics with Canada and Azerbaijan: minimal aerodynamic grip, chilly conditions, and low grip. They are the sole pair of circuits in the current championship where McLaren have been unable to claim at least one top-three finish, and the leader was circumspect again about their chances this weekend. Yet, his task in the immediate future is straightforward: finish in front of his teammate and the points he needs will follow.

Practice Shows Mixed Outcomes for Championship Contenders

The Ferrari driver topped the leaderboard in FP1 on what was remained a dusty and extremely low-grip track. Alex Albon was runner-up, with Verstappen fourth, the McLaren ace in P6, and the Australian eighth. During the more representative night running of second practice, the Briton was quickest from the Mercedes of the Italian rookie, with Piastri 14th; though, the practice was interrupted for nearly the final 20 minutes of track time to check a reported loose manhole cover at the penultimate corner.

The issue is taken seriously on a street circuit where, at the inaugural Las Vegas GP held in 2023, a loose manhole smashed into the Ferrari, heavily harming it and leading to the session to be ended.

Mercedes Announce Stake Transaction

The eight-time constructors' champions have confirmed that their boss the Austrian executive has sold a fifteen percent share in his holding company, representing a five percent ownership in the squad, to American billionaire George Kurtz. The investor is the CEO and founder of the digital protection firm CrowdStrike. The team principal will remain as team principal and could earn up to £230 million from the sale, with Mercedes having been valued at £4.57 billion, a record for an F1 team.