🔗 Share this article

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

Norris currently has a 24-point lead over teammate Oscar Piastri and leads Max Verstappen by 49 points, with only up to eighty-three points available across the final three races. But, after pulling off a remarkable comeback from a significant deficit Piastri after 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 quickly turn the opposite way again even though I don't want it to," he stated. "That's racing, as we all know. Sometimes you get lucky. Other times you also be unlucky. Whatever it may be. There's really not worth becoming overjoyed or thinking about it. I continue to view it as a goal that's quite far away."

Norris has found his best form at a crucial juncture—after difficulties with the car in the first part of the season—while Piastri has shed the disciplined, almost flawless ease that previously made him appear to be a champion in waiting. Importantly, Norris maintained a remarkable level of equanimity throughout, insisting despite challenges—like his withdrawal from the Zandvoort race—that he would stick to his gameplan and approach each session with the identical unwavering focus on specifics. This approach has paid off.

All the while, the team have worked hard to try to preserve a level playing field for their pair of racers, and it has on occasion been something of difficult experience, 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 slow pit stop. Certain spectators were unhappy with what was considered the team unnecessarily interfering with their competitors.

The championship leader has won the last two grands prix, in Mexico City and Brazil, and was jeered on the winner's rostrum at each, yet he remained unfazed. "When you're leading, many individuals try to bring you down. They don't like seeing you winning. I see it as a positive sign," he remarked.

"It just amuses me. When I was on the podium in Interlagos, I really enjoyed it. The experience was quite enjoyable. You finally feel like you're doing something right.

"I don't mind, provided that I come out on top. If I feel like I'm doing it the correct way, which I feel like I am, as long as I am confident I am dedicating effort into remaining true to myself and those kinds of things, then I am not concerned with the rest of it."

Vegas, on the other hand, needs to be conquered, and it is not a track ideal for the British team. It shares similarities with Montreal and Azerbaijan: low downforce, chilly conditions, and low grip. These are the sole pair of tracks in the current championship where the papaya squad have failed to claim at least one top-three finish, and the leader was circumspect again about their prospects in Nevada. Yet, his task in the short term is straightforward: finish in front of Piastri and the points he requires will follow.

Friday Running Sees Varied Outcomes for Championship Rivals

The Ferrari driver led the leaderboard in first practice on what was still a sandy and extremely slippery surface. The Williams racer was runner-up, with the Red Bull star fourth, Norris in P6, and Piastri in eighth. During the more representative night running of FP2, Norris was fastest from the Silver Arrows of the Italian rookie, with his teammate down in fourteenth; though, the practice was interrupted for almost all of the final 20 minutes of track time to inspect a reported unsecured manhole cover at the penultimate corner.

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

Mercedes Announce Ownership Transaction

The eight-time constructors' champions have revealed that their boss the Austrian executive has divested a 15% stake in his investment firm, representing a five percent ownership in the squad, to US tycoon the cybersecurity magnate. The investor 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 deal, with the Brackley-based outfit having been appraised at £4.57 billion, a new high for an F1 team.