Despite the hype surrounding the Las Vegas Grand Prix, Lando Norris is maintaining a level head regarding his chances of securing his maiden drivers' championship.
Norris presently has a 24-point lead over fellow McLaren driver Oscar Piastri and is ahead of Max Verstappen by 49 points, with only up to 83 points available across the final three races. But, after staging a remarkable comeback from 34 points behind Piastri following the Dutch Grand Prix in the summer, Norris is focused on executing with the methodical approach that propelled him to the lead of the championship.
"It can easily go in the other direction once more as much as I hope it doesn't," he commented. "That's racing, you know. You can get lucky. You can also be unfortunate. Whatever it may be. There's really no point becoming overjoyed or dwelling on it. I continue to do see it as a goal that remains far away."
Norris has discovered his peak performance at a critical juncture—having struggled with the car in the first part of the campaign—while his teammate has shed the controlled, almost perfect composure that previously made him seem to be a future title winner. Notably, Norris kept a impressive level of composure all along, asserting even in the face of setbacks—like his withdrawal from the Zandvoort race—that he would stick to his strategy and approach every outing with the same relentless attention to detail. It has yielded results.
All the while, McLaren have gone to no little effort to try to maintain a level playing field for their pair of racers, and it has at times been a rather difficult experience, most notably at Monza when the team instructed Piastri to cede the runner-up spot to Norris after he had lost the spot due to a delayed tire change. Some fans did not take well to what was seen as the team unnecessarily interfering with their drivers.
The championship leader has won the last two races, in Mexico and São Paulo, and was jeered on the winner's rostrum at both, leaving him unfazed. "Once you are on top, many individuals want to bring you down. They do not like seeing you winning. I consider it a good thing," he remarked.
"It amuses me. When I was on the podium in Brazil, I truly enjoyed it. The experience was very satisfying. You finally sense that you're doing success.
"It doesn't bother me, as long as I come out on top. As long as I feel like I'm doing it the correct 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 about the rest of it."
Vegas, meanwhile, must be conquered, and it is not a track ideal for the McLaren. It shares similarities with Canada and Baku: minimal aerodynamic grip, chilly conditions, and low grip. They are the only two tracks this season where the papaya squad have been unable to claim a single podium place, and the leader was cautious again about their chances this weekend. Yet, his task in the immediate future is simple: finish in ahead of Piastri and the championship tally he needs will follow.
Friday Running Shows Varied Outcomes for Title Contenders
The Ferrari driver led the times in FP1 on what was remained a dusty and very low-grip surface. The Williams racer was second, with Verstappen in fourth, the McLaren ace in P6, and Piastri eighth. During the more representative night running of second practice, Norris was fastest from the Silver Arrows of the Italian rookie, with Piastri 14th; however, the practice was interrupted for almost all of the final 20 minutes of running to check a suspected loose manhole cover at the penultimate corner.
The issue is treated with caution on a temporary track where, at the first Las Vegas GP held in 2023, a dislodged manhole smashed into Carlos Sainz's Ferrari, severely harming it and leading to the practice to be ended.
Mercedes Announce Stake Sale
The eight-time constructors' champions have revealed that their team principal Toto Wolff has sold a 15% stake in his investment firm, representing a 5% share in the squad, to American billionaire George Kurtz. Kurtz is the CEO and founder of the digital protection firm CrowdStrike. Wolff will remain as team principal and could earn as much as £230 million from the sale, with the Brackley-based outfit having been valued at £4.57bn, a new high for an F1 team.
