{"id":299670,"date":"2025-11-21T17:18:10","date_gmt":"2025-11-21T17:18:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/299670\/"},"modified":"2025-11-21T17:18:10","modified_gmt":"2025-11-21T17:18:10","slug":"i-still-see-title-as-quite-distant-f1-leader-norris-not-hedging-bets-for-las-vegas-gp-formula-one-2025","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/299670\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018I still see title as quite distant\u2019: F1 leader Norris not hedging bets for Las Vegas GP | Formula One 2025"},"content":{"rendered":"

For all the sound and fury of the Las Vegas Grand Prix, Lando Norris<\/a> is refusing to get excited about the prospect of putting one hand on a first drivers\u2019 championship trophy in Sin City.<\/p>\n

Norris leads his McLaren teammate Oscar Piastri by 24 points in the title race and Max Verstappen by 49 with a maximum of only 83 on the table over the three remaining meetings. But with the 26-year-old Briton having wrought an extraordinary comeback from 34 points behind Piastri<\/a> after August\u2019s Dutch Grand Prix, he is determined to focus on executing with the clinical calm that has put him into the lead in the standings, not the potential outcome of the race.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt can easily just go the opposite way again as much as I don\u2019t want it to,\u201d he said. \u201cThat\u2019s racing, you know. You can also have luck. You can also be unlucky. Whatever it may be. There\u2019s really no point getting excited or thinking about it. I still do see it as something that\u2019s quite distant.\u201d<\/p>\n

Norris has found his best form at a crucial juncture \u2013 having struggled with the car in the opening half of the season \u2013 at the same time that Piastri has lost the controlled, almost flawless ease that had for so long made him appear to be a champion in waiting. Norris notably kept a remarkable level of equanimity throughout, insisting even in the face of setbacks \u2013 such as his retirement from the Dutch GP \u2013 that he would stick to his gameplan and work each session with the same relentless attention to detail. It has paid off.<\/p>\n

All the while McLaren have gone to no little effort to try to maintain a level playing field for their two drivers and it has at times been something of a torturous process, most notably at Monza when the team instructed Piastri to cede second place<\/a> to Norris after he had lost the spot to his teammate through a slow pit stop. Some fans did not take well to what was considered was McLaren unnecessarily manipulating their drivers.<\/p>\n

Norris has won the last two races, in Mexico<\/a> and Brazil<\/a>, and was booed on the podium at both, leaving him unmoved. \u201cWhen you\u2019re on top, a lot of people want to bring you down. They don\u2019t want to see you winning. I see it as a good thing,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Lando Norris holds a 24-point lead before Sunday\u2019s Las Vegas Grand Prix. Photograph: James Sutton\/Formula 1\/Getty Images<\/p>\n

\u201cIt just makes me laugh. When I was on the podium in Brazil, I really loved it. It was quite enjoyable. You finally feel like you\u2019re doing something right.<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t mind, as long as I win. As long as I feel like I\u2019m doing it the correct way, which I feel like I am, as long as I feel like I\u2019m putting effort into being who I am and those kinds of things, then I\u2019m not too fussed about the rest of it.\u201d<\/p>\n

Vegas meanwhile must be mastered and it is not a track suited to the McLaren. It shares characteristics with Canada<\/a> and Baku<\/a>: low downforce, cool temperatures and low grip. They are the only two circuits this season where McLaren have failed to claim at least one podium place and Norris was circumspect once more about their chances this weekend. Yet his task in the short term is simple: finish in front of Piastri and the points he needs will come.<\/p>\n

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Charles Leclerc topped the times for Ferrari in first practice on what was still a dusty and very low-grip surface. Alex Albon was second for Williams with Verstappen fourth, Norris sixth and Piastri eighth. In the more representative night running of FP2, Norris was quickest from the Mercedes of Kimi Antonelli with Piastri 14th, however the session lost almost all of the final 20 minutes of running to check a reported loose manhole cover at turn 17.<\/p>\n

The issue is taken seriously on a street circuit where, at the first Las Vegas GP held in 2023, a loose drain cover smashed into Carlos Sainz\u2019s Ferrari<\/a>, severely damaging it and causing the session to be ended.<\/p>\n

Mercedes have confirmed their team principal, Toto Wolff, has sold a 15% stake in his holding company, representing a 5% share in the team, to the American billionaire George Kurtz. Kurtz is the CEO and founder of the cybersecurity company CrowdStrike. Wolff will remain as team principal and could earn as much as \u00a3230m from the sale, with Mercedes having been valued at \u00a34.57bn, a record for an F1 team.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"For all the sound and fury of the Las Vegas Grand Prix, Lando Norris is refusing to get…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":299671,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[573],"tags":[64,63,817,813,816,85],"class_list":{"0":"post-299670","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-formula-1","8":"tag-au","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-f1","11":"tag-formula-1","12":"tag-formula1","13":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/299670","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=299670"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/299670\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/299671"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=299670"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=299670"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=299670"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}