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Amid the hype around the Las Vegas Grand Prix, Lando Norris is keeping a level head about his prospects of securing his first drivers' championship.

Norris presently holds a two-dozen point lead over teammate Oscar Piastri and is ahead of Max Verstappen by 49 points, with just a maximum of eighty-three points available across the final three races. But, after staging a remarkable recovery from 34 points behind his teammate after the Dutch Grand Prix in the summer, Norris is focused on performing with the clinical precision that propelled him to the lead of the standings.

"It can easily go in the other direction 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 unfortunate. No matter what happens. There's really no point becoming overjoyed or dwelling on it. I continue to view it as a goal that's quite far away."

The 26-year-old has found his peak performance at a crucial moment—having struggled with the vehicle in the opening half of the campaign—while his teammate has lost the controlled, almost perfect ease that had for so long made him seem to be a champion in waiting. Notably, Norris kept a remarkable level of composure throughout, asserting despite setbacks—like his retirement from the Dutch GP—that he would stick to his strategy and approach every outing with the same relentless attention to detail. It has paid off.

All the while, McLaren have worked hard to try to preserve a fair competition for their two drivers, and it has at times been something of torturous process, most notably at the Italian Grand Prix when the squad directed Piastri to cede second place to his teammate following he had fallen behind because of a slow pit stop. Certain spectators did not take well to what was seen as McLaren unnecessarily interfering with their drivers.

Norris has claimed victory in the previous pair of races, in Mexico and Brazil, and was booed on the podium at both, yet he remained unmoved. "Once you are on top, many individuals try to undermine you. They don't want to see you succeeding. I consider it a good thing," he said.

"It amuses me. While standing on the podium in Interlagos, I truly loved it. It was very satisfying. At last you sense that you are achieving something right.

"It doesn't bother me, provided that I come out on top. As long as I feel like I'm doing it the correct way, and I think I am, as long as I am confident I'm putting hard work into being who I am and those kinds of things, then I'm not too fussed about the rest of it."

Las Vegas, meanwhile, must be conquered, and it is not a track ideal for the British team. The layout has similarities with Montreal and Baku: low downforce, cool temperatures, and low grip. These are the only two tracks this season where the papaya squad have failed to claim at least one top-three finish, and Norris was cautious again about their prospects this weekend. Yet, his task in the immediate future is straightforward: finish in front of Piastri and the championship tally he needs will follow.

Friday Running Sees Mixed Results for Title Rivals

The Ferrari driver topped the leaderboard in FP1 on what was still a sandy and very low-grip surface. The Williams racer was runner-up, with Verstappen fourth, Norris sixth, and Piastri eighth. In the more representative night running of FP2, the Briton was fastest ahead of the Mercedes of Kimi Antonelli, with Piastri down in fourteenth; however, the practice was interrupted for nearly the final 20 minutes of track time to check a reported unsecured manhole cover at the penultimate corner.

The issue is taken seriously on a temporary track where, at the first Las Vegas GP staged in 2023, a dislodged manhole smashed into Carlos Sainz's Ferrari, heavily harming it and leading to the practice to be ended.

The German Team Announce Ownership Transaction

The eight-time constructors' champions have confirmed that their boss Toto Wolff has divested a 15% stake in his investment firm, equating to a 5% share in the team, to American billionaire George Kurtz. Kurtz is the chief executive and creator of the cybersecurity company the tech giant. The team principal will remain as boss and may receive as much as £230 million from the sale, with the Brackley-based outfit having been valued at £4.57 billion, a record for an F1 team.