Amid all hype around the Sin City Grand Prix, Lando Norris is maintaining a level head regarding his prospects of securing his first drivers' championship.
The British driver currently holds a 24-point advantage over teammate Oscar Piastri and is ahead of Max Verstappen by 49 points, with only a maximum of eighty-three points up for grabs across the remaining trio of events. However, after staging a remarkable recovery from a significant deficit Piastri following the Zandvoort race in the summer, Norris is concentrating on executing with the methodical approach that lifted him to the lead of the standings.
"It can easily turn the opposite way once more as much as I don't want it to," he stated. "That's racing, as we all know. Sometimes you also have luck. You can end up unfortunate. No matter what happens. It's not worth getting excited or dwelling on it. I still view it as something that's quite distant."
Norris has discovered his peak performance at a crucial juncture—after difficulties with the car in the first part of the campaign—while Piastri has lost the controlled, almost flawless ease that had for so long made him appear to be a future title winner. Importantly, Norris maintained a impressive level of equanimity throughout, asserting even in the face of setbacks—such as his retirement from the Dutch GP—that he would adhere to his strategy and approach each session with the same relentless focus on specifics. It has yielded results.
Meanwhile, McLaren have gone to no little effort to try to preserve a level playing field for their two drivers, and it has on occasion been something of torturous experience, most notably at the Italian Grand Prix when the squad instructed the Australian to cede second place to Norris after he had fallen behind because of a delayed tire change. Certain spectators were unhappy with what was seen as the team needlessly manipulating their drivers.
The championship leader has won the previous pair of grands prix, in Mexico and Brazil, and was jeered on the podium at each, yet he remained unfazed. "Once you are on top, many people try to undermine you. They don't like seeing you succeeding. I see it as a good thing," he remarked.
"It makes me laugh. While standing on the podium in Brazil, I truly enjoyed it. The experience was quite enjoyable. At last you sense that you're doing something right.
"I don't mind, as long as I come out on top. If I believe I am competing the right way, and I think I am, as long as I feel like I'm putting effort into remaining true to myself and similar principles, then I am not concerned with external opinions."
Vegas, meanwhile, needs to be conquered, and it is not a track suited to the McLaren. The layout has characteristics with Montreal and Baku: minimal aerodynamic grip, chilly conditions, and low grip. They are the only two circuits this season where the papaya squad have failed to claim a single podium place, and the leader was cautious again about their chances in Nevada. Yet, his task in the immediate future is straightforward: finish in front of Piastri and the points he requires will come.
The Ferrari driver led the times in first practice on what was still a dusty and very low-grip surface. Alex Albon was second, with Verstappen fourth, Norris sixth, and Piastri in eighth. In the more representative night running of second practice, Norris was quickest from the Mercedes of Kimi Antonelli, with his teammate down in fourteenth; however, the practice lost almost all of the last third of track time to inspect a reported loose manhole cover at turn 17.
The issue is treated with caution on a temporary track where, at the first Las Vegas GP held in 2023, a loose manhole smashed into the Ferrari, heavily damaging it and leading to the practice to be aborted.
The eight-time constructors' champions have revealed that their team principal the Austrian executive has divested a 15% stake in his holding company, representing a 5% share 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 stay on as boss and could earn as much as £230m from the sale, with Mercedes having been appraised at £4.57 billion, a new high for an F1 team.
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