🔗 Share this article

Amid the excitement around the Sin City Grand Prix, Lando Norris is maintaining a calm demeanor about his chances of claiming his first drivers' championship.

The British driver presently holds a 24-point advantage over teammate Oscar Piastri and leads Max Verstappen by 49 points, with just a maximum of eighty-three points available across the final three races. But, after staging a extraordinary comeback from 34 points behind his teammate following the Dutch Grand Prix in August, Norris is concentrating on executing with the methodical approach that lifted him to the top of the standings.

"Things can quickly go the opposite way again as much as I don't want it to," he commented. "That's motorsport, as we all know. You can also have luck. You can also be unfortunate. No matter what happens. There's really not worth becoming overjoyed or dwelling on it. I continue to do see it as a goal that's quite distant."

Norris has discovered his best form at a crucial juncture—having struggled with the car in the first part of the season—at the same time that his teammate has shed the controlled, almost perfect composure that previously made him seem to be a future title winner. Importantly, Norris maintained a impressive level of composure all along, insisting despite setbacks—such as his withdrawal from the Dutch GP—that he would adhere to his gameplan and approach each session with the same relentless attention to detail. This approach has yielded results.

Meanwhile, the team have gone to no little effort to attempt to preserve a level playing field for their pair of racers, and it has on occasion been a rather difficult process, most notably at the Italian Grand Prix when the team directed the Australian to cede the runner-up spot to his teammate following he had fallen behind due to a delayed tire change. Some fans did not take well to what was seen as McLaren unnecessarily interfering with their competitors.

The championship leader has claimed victory in the last two races, in Mexico and Brazil, and was booed on the podium at each, leaving him unmoved. "Once you are on top, a lot of individuals want to undermine you. They don't like seeing you succeeding. I see it as a good thing," he said.

"It just amuses me. When I was on the winner's stage in Brazil, I really enjoyed it. The experience was very enjoyable. You finally feel like you're doing success.

"I don't mind, as long as I come out on top. If I feel like I am competing the right manner, which I feel like I am, as long as I feel like I'm putting effort into being who I am and those kinds of things, then I am not concerned with external opinions."

Vegas, meanwhile, needs to be mastered, and it is not a track suited to the McLaren. The layout has similarities with Montreal and Baku: low downforce, chilly conditions, and slippery surfaces. They are the only two tracks in the current championship where McLaren have failed to claim a single top-three finish, and the leader was cautious again about their chances this weekend. Still, his task in the short term is simple: finish in ahead of his teammate and the championship tally he requires will follow.

Practice Sees Varied Results for Title Rivals

The Ferrari driver topped the leaderboard in FP1 on what was remained a sandy and extremely low-grip surface. Alex Albon was runner-up, with the Red Bull star in fourth, Norris sixth, and the Australian in eighth. In the more indicative night running of second practice, the Briton was fastest from the Mercedes of Kimi Antonelli, with Piastri 14th; though, the session lost almost all of the final 20 minutes of track time to inspect a suspected unsecured manhole cover at turn 17.

This problem is taken seriously on a street circuit where, at the first Las Vegas GP staged in 2023, a dislodged drain cover struck the Ferrari, heavily damaging it and leading to the session to be aborted.

The German Team Announce Ownership Sale

Mercedes have confirmed that their team principal Toto Wolff has sold a fifteen percent share in his investment firm, equating to a five percent ownership in the team, to American billionaire the cybersecurity magnate. Kurtz is the CEO and founder of the digital protection firm the tech giant. Wolff will remain as boss and could earn as much as £230m from the deal, with Mercedes having been valued at £4.57bn, a record for an F1 team.