🔗 Share this article

Despite the hype around the Sin City Grand Prix, Lando Norris is maintaining a level head about his prospects of securing his first drivers' championship.

Norris currently holds a two-dozen point advantage over fellow McLaren driver Oscar Piastri and leads Max Verstappen by nearly fifty points, with only a maximum of 83 points up for grabs across the final three events. But, after pulling off a remarkable comeback from a significant deficit Piastri following the Dutch Grand Prix in the summer, Norris is concentrating on performing with the clinical precision that propelled him to the top of the standings.

"It can easily turn the opposite way again even though I hope it doesn't," he stated. "That's racing, you know. You can also have luck. You can end up unlucky. Whatever it may be. It's not worth becoming overjoyed or thinking about it. I continue to do see it as something that remains far away."

Norris has found his peak performance at a critical juncture—having struggled with the car in the first part of the season—at the same time that his teammate has shed the controlled, nearly perfect ease that previously made him seem to be a champion in waiting. Notably, Norris kept a remarkable level of equanimity all along, insisting despite setbacks—such as his retirement from the Dutch GP—that he would adhere to his strategy and approach every outing with the identical unwavering attention to detail. It has paid off.

Meanwhile, McLaren have worked hard to attempt to preserve a fair competition for their pair of racers, and it has at times been a rather difficult experience, especially at Monza when the squad instructed Piastri to surrender the runner-up spot to Norris following he had lost the spot because of a slow pit stop. Certain spectators did not take well to what was seen as the team unnecessarily manipulating their drivers.

Norris has claimed victory in the previous pair of grands prix, in Mexico City and Brazil, and was jeered on the podium at both, yet he remained unmoved. "When you're on top, a lot of individuals try to undermine you. They don't want to see you succeeding. I consider it a good thing," he remarked.

"It makes me laugh. While standing on the podium in Interlagos, I truly loved it. It was very satisfying. You finally sense that you are achieving something right.

"It doesn't bother me, as long as I come out on top. If I feel like I am competing the right manner, which I feel like I am, so long as I am confident I am dedicating effort into remaining true to myself and those kinds of things, then I am not concerned with external opinions."

Las Vegas, on the other hand, needs to be mastered, and it is not a track ideal for the British team. The layout has characteristics with Montreal and Baku: low downforce, chilly conditions, and low grip. These are the sole pair of tracks this season where the papaya squad have failed to claim at least one podium place, and Norris was circumspect once more about their prospects in Nevada. Still, his objective in the immediate future is simple: finish in front of Piastri and the points he needs will come.

Friday Running Sees Varied Outcomes for Championship Contenders

Charles Leclerc led the leaderboard in FP1 on what was still a sandy and very low-grip track. The Williams racer was runner-up, with the Red Bull star fourth, Norris sixth, and Piastri eighth. During the more indicative night running of FP2, the Briton was fastest from the Mercedes of Kimi Antonelli, with his teammate down in fourteenth; though, the session was interrupted for nearly the final 20 minutes of running to check a reported unsecured drain cover at the penultimate corner.

The issue is taken seriously on a temporary track where, at the first Las Vegas GP held in 2023, a dislodged drain cover smashed into Carlos Sainz's Ferrari, heavily damaging it and leading to the session to be aborted.

Mercedes Announce Ownership Sale

The eight-time constructors' champions have confirmed that their team principal Toto Wolff has sold a fifteen percent share in his holding company, representing a five percent ownership in the team, to US tycoon George Kurtz. Kurtz is the CEO and founder of the cybersecurity company CrowdStrike. The team principal will stay on as team principal and could earn up to £230 million from the deal, with the Brackley-based outfit having been appraised at £4.57 billion, a new high for an F1 team.