Despite the excitement surrounding the Las Vegas Grand Prix, Lando Norris is maintaining a calm demeanor about his prospects of claiming his maiden drivers' championship.
Norris presently has a 24-point advantage over teammate Oscar Piastri and is ahead of Max Verstappen by nearly fifty points, with only a maximum of eighty-three points available across the final three events. But, after staging a remarkable comeback from a significant deficit Piastri following the Dutch Grand Prix in August, Norris is concentrating on performing with the methodical approach that lifted him to the lead of the standings.
"Things can easily turn in the other direction once more even though I don't want it to," he commented. "That's racing, as we all know. Sometimes you also have luck. You can end up unlucky. Whatever it may be. It's no point becoming overjoyed or dwelling on it. I continue to do see it as something that's quite far away."
Norris has found his peak performance at a critical moment—after difficulties with the car in the first part of the season—while Piastri has shed the disciplined, almost perfect composure that had for so long made him seem to be a future title winner. Notably, Norris kept a remarkable level of composure throughout, insisting despite challenges—like his withdrawal from the Dutch GP—that he would stick to his strategy and approach each session with the identical relentless attention to detail. It has yielded results.
Meanwhile, McLaren have gone to no little effort to try to preserve a fair competition for their two drivers, and it has on occasion been a rather torturous process, most notably at Monza when the squad instructed the Australian to surrender second place to Norris after he had lost the spot due to a slow pit stop. Some fans did not take well to what was seen as the team needlessly manipulating their competitors.
Norris has claimed victory in the last two races, in Mexico and SĂŁo Paulo, and was booed on the winner's rostrum at both, leaving him unfazed. "When you're on top, a lot of people try to bring you down. They don't want to see you succeeding. I see it as a good thing," he said.
"It amuses me. While standing on the winner's stage in Interlagos, I truly enjoyed it. It was very enjoyable. You finally sense that you're doing something right.
"I don't mind, as long as I win. As long as I feel like I'm doing it the right manner, which I feel like I am, so long as I am confident I am dedicating hard work into being who I am and similar principles, then I'm not too fussed with the rest of it."
Vegas, on the other hand, needs to be mastered, and it is a circuit ideal for the British team. It shares similarities with Canada and Azerbaijan: low downforce, cool temperatures, and slippery surfaces. These are the only two tracks this season where the papaya squad have failed to claim a single top-three finish, and the leader was cautious once more about their chances this weekend. Yet, his task in the immediate future is straightforward: end the race in front of his teammate and the championship tally he requires will follow.
Charles Leclerc topped the leaderboard in FP1 on what was remained a dusty and extremely slippery surface. Alex Albon was runner-up, with the Red Bull star fourth, Norris sixth, and the Australian in eighth. During the more indicative evening session of second practice, the Briton was quickest ahead of the Silver Arrows of Kimi Antonelli, with Piastri 14th; though, the practice lost nearly the last third of running to check a reported unsecured manhole cover at turn 17.
This problem is taken seriously on a temporary track where, at the first Las Vegas GP held in 2023, a dislodged manhole struck the Ferrari, heavily harming it and leading to the session to be aborted.
Mercedes have confirmed that their boss Toto Wolff has sold a 15% stake in his investment firm, equating to a five percent ownership in the squad, to US tycoon 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 ÂŁ230m from the deal, with the Brackley-based outfit having been valued at ÂŁ4.57 billion, a record for an Formula 1 constructor.
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