🔗 Share this article

Amid the excitement surrounding the Sin City Grand Prix, McLaren's lead driver is maintaining a calm demeanor about his prospects of claiming his first drivers' championship.

Norris presently holds a two-dozen point lead over teammate Oscar Piastri and leads Max Verstappen by 49 points, with only up to eighty-three points up for grabs across the final three events. However, after staging a remarkable recovery from 34 points behind Piastri after the Zandvoort race in the summer, Norris is focused on executing with the clinical precision that propelled him to the lead of the championship.

"Things can quickly go in the other direction once more even though I don't want it to," he stated. "That's motorsport, as we all know. Sometimes you get lucky. Other times you end up unlucky. No matter what happens. There's really no point getting excited or thinking about it. I still view it as something that's quite far away."

The 26-year-old has found his best form at a crucial juncture—having struggled with the vehicle in the opening half of the campaign—while Piastri has shed the disciplined, almost perfect ease that had for so long made him seem to be a future title winner. Notably, Norris maintained a remarkable level of composure all along, insisting even in the face of challenges—like his withdrawal from the Dutch GP—that he would adhere to his strategy and work each session with the identical unwavering attention to detail. This approach has yielded results.

All the while, the team have worked hard to try to preserve a fair competition for their two drivers, and it has on occasion been a rather difficult process, especially at Monza when the squad directed Piastri to surrender the runner-up spot to his teammate following he had lost the spot because of a delayed tire change. Some fans did not take well to what was seen as the team needlessly manipulating their drivers.

Norris has claimed victory in the last two grands prix, in Mexico and Brazil, and was jeered on the winner's rostrum at each, leaving him unfazed. "Once you are leading, many people want to bring you down. They do not like seeing you succeeding. I consider it a good thing," he remarked.

"It makes me laugh. When I was on the podium in Brazil, I really loved it. It was very satisfying. At last you sense that you're doing something right.

"I don't mind, provided that I come out on top. As long as I feel like I am competing the right way, which I feel like that's the case, as long as I feel like I am dedicating effort into remaining true to myself and those kinds of things, then I'm not too fussed about the rest of it."

Las Vegas, on the other hand, needs to be mastered, 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 only two circuits in the current championship where McLaren have been unable to secure at least one top-three finish, and the leader was circumspect again about their prospects in Nevada. Yet, his objective in the immediate future is straightforward: finish in ahead of Piastri and the points he requires will follow.

Practice Sees Varied Outcomes for Championship Rivals

The Ferrari driver led the leaderboard in FP1 on what was still a dusty and extremely slippery track. Alex Albon was second, with the Red Bull star fourth, the McLaren ace in P6, and the Australian in eighth. During the more representative evening session of second practice, Norris was fastest from the Mercedes of Kimi Antonelli, with Piastri down in fourteenth; however, the session lost almost all of the last third of track time to check a reported unsecured manhole cover at turn 17.

The issue is taken seriously on a temporary track where, at the inaugural Las Vegas GP staged in 2023, a dislodged drain cover smashed into Carlos Sainz's Ferrari, heavily harming it and causing the practice to be aborted.

The German Team Confirm Stake Sale

Mercedes have confirmed that their boss the Austrian executive has divested a fifteen percent share in his holding company, equating to a 5% share in the team, to American billionaire the cybersecurity magnate. The investor is the chief executive and creator of the cybersecurity company CrowdStrike. The team principal will stay on as boss and may receive up to £230 million from the sale, with Mercedes having been valued at £4.57bn, a record for an Formula 1 constructor.