For a moment it seemed like the third running of the Las Vegas Grand Prix would go down as a fizzer unbefitting of the chaotic first two editions of the race.
It turns out we just had to wait a while.
Around two hours after the chequered flag, FIA technical delegate Jo Bauer threw a hand grenade.
Fox Sports, available on Kayo Sports, is the only place to watch every practice, qualifying session and race in the 2025 FIA Formula One World Championship™ LIVE in 4K. New to Kayo? Join now and get your first month for just $1.
Both Lando Norris and Oscar Piastri’s cars had been checked after the race and were found to have been running too low.
An equal outcome for both drivers, in the true fashion of McLaren fairness.
With two rounds to go, the championship picture has been dramatically shaken.
Norris arrived in Las Vegas with one hand on the title trophy, and after the chequered flag he had nine fingers wrapped around the prize.
Instead his title lead remains exactly as it was, at 24 points over Oscar Piastri.
Except — and it’s a big except.
Max Verstappen is now tied with Piastri at 24 points behind Norris.
The jeopardy, just as it appeared to be tailing off, has been doubled and doubled again with two rounds remaining.
Explained: Why McLaren was disqualified | 01:17
WHAT HAPPENED?
This remarkable twist in the championship is rooted in one of Formula 1’s fundamental technical rules: the plank.
The plank is a piece of specifically regulated material that sits underneath the car. It’s designed to control ride height.
It does so by being precisely 10 millimetres thick.
It is allowed to wear by no more than 1 millimetre over the course of a race distance.
If it wears by more than that, the car is judged to have been run too low and is disqualified.
Both cars were found to have worn down between 1.07 millimetre and 1.12 millimetres at two separate measuring points.
There’s no such thing as a partial technical infringement. A car is either legal or illegal. It’s extremely rare for stewards to accept mitigating circumstances as an explanation — though McLaren attempted to argue unconvincingly that both cars could have picked up damage that led to increased wear.
So how did this happen?
Running a car as low as possible is desirable for aerodynamic performance. That’s particularly the case in the ground-effect era, when the floor is the most influential aerodynamic part.
Every team simulates how low they can run the car and then verifies that calculation during practice. Ride height interacts directly with downforce levels — more downforce will force the car harder into the floor at higher speeds — suspension configuration and fuel load.
Of course all of these settings are liable to change over the course of a weekend as the cars are honed for performance.
The previous two plank disqualifications came on sprint weekends — in Shanghai earlier this year and in Austin two years ago. They were explained as being down to the limited practice time the teams have to verify their calculations.
The McLaren double DQ is a huge boost to Max Verstappen’s world title hopes.Source: FOX SPORTS
Las Vegas was a regular three-practice weekend, but those three practice sessions were heavily disrupted.
FP2 in particular was almost totally written off by two red flags for a loose drain cover. Norris and Piastri ran just 13 and 12 laps respectively. Neither driver undertook any running with a heavy fuel load as a result of the disruption.
FP3, when they might have made up for the lost running, was mostly wet, limiting representative mileage.
The first representative long stint in the dry was the 50-lap race.
That was the first moment McLaren realised its calculations were wrong.
McLaren attempted to argue the reduced practice time qualified as mitigating circumstances, but the stewards didn’t accept the defence — after all, no other car was found to be in breach.
It seems the team suspected during the race it might be in trouble.
Teams have sensors that can suggest the plank is taking a beating, but there’s no way to measure it while on the track. McLaren also noted in the stewards hearing that both cars experienced more porpoising than expected.
Norris was instructed aggressively lift and coast — lift off the throttle before hitting the brakes — in the final laps of the race. It appeared at the time to be related to fuel saving, but Norris referenced after the race “some issues with the car”.
It’s unclear whether McLaren realised during the race that it might have been marginal for plank wear — and whether that was also evident for Piastri’s car given the Australian wasn’t asked to undertake similar management.
Whatever the case, the result is the same: both cars are disqualified.
Analysing pivotal Piastri lap 1 hit | 04:52
WHAT ABOUT THE CHAMPIONSHIP?
Ironically the double disqualification was a small reprieve for Piastri, whose race was good enough for only fourth, two places behind Norris.
He was set to ship six points to Norris in the standings and leave Vegas 30 points adrift.
With just two rounds remaining, his championship challenge was all but finished. He would have had to outscore Norris by five points in Qatar just to stay alive to the final round.
Verstappen, despite his victory, would still have been 42 points adrift, his title defence purely mathematical.
Standings before the disqualification
1. Lando Norris: 408 points
2. Oscar Piastri: 378 points (-30 points)
3. Max Verstappen: 366 points (-42 points)
Now, however, everything has changed.
Piastri gets those six points back, resetting his deficit to 24 points — still difficult to achieve but at least believable.
Verstappen, though, effectively got a free hit from Vegas, lashing his original 49-point deficit down to 24 points.
Updated championship standings
1. Lando Norris: 390 points
2. Oscar Piastri: 366 points (-24 points)
3. Max Verstappen: 366 points (-24 points)
Norris’s margin is still comfortable enough. A couple of podiums at the next two rounds, no matter the position, will guarantee him the title so long as he finishes in the top four in the Qatar sprint.
That would have seemed entirely achievable given the combination of Piastri’s recent form and fortune.
Verstappen, however, is an entirely different proposition.
Despite Norris’s good form recently, Verstappen remains the form man of Formula 1.
Let’s consider the eight races since the mid-season break.
Verstappen has won four races to Norris’s two and Piastri’s one.
He’s been on the podium for all eight races. Norris has stood on the rostrum five times to Piastri’s two appearances.
But it’s in the points count that the danger becomes clear.
Points, rounds 15–22, title contenders only
1. Max Verstappen: 179 points (22.4 points per round)
2. Lando Norris: 115 points (14.4 points per round)
3. Oscar Piastri: 82 points (10.3 points per round)
Of course eight points per round won’t be enough for Verstappen, but it certainly puts him inside the margin for error.
And he’s the only multiple winner of this weekend’s Qatar Grand Prix and has the second-most wins at the final Abu Dhabi Grand Prix.
That’s quite the championship set-up.
Verstappen wins Vegas Grand Prix | 01:21
VERSTAPPEN IN SPARKLING FORM
Verstappen isn’t just in good form; he’s in historically good form.
His 69th career victory from 231 grands prix takes him to a success rate of 29.87 per cent.
That’s greater Michael Schumacher’s 29.64 per cent for 91 wins in 307 grands prix.
It puts him behind only Juan Manuel Fangio (47.06 per cent), Alberto Ascari (40.63 per cent) and Jim Clark (34.72 per cent) in terms of victory percentage among Formula 1 grand prix drivers.
It’s a reminder that even with his title defence in doubt, we’re still very much living in the Verstappen era.
Las Vegas was his sixth win of the season. That’s only one fewer than both Norris and Piastri. It’s his 13th podium appearance, only one fewer than Piastri and four fewer than Norris. He’s equal with Norris on seven poles.
There’s an irony in the fact that it’s taken a year in which Verstappen hasn’t had access to consistently race-winning, title-contending machinery for some doubters to fully appreciate his extraordinary driving abilities.
But there’s no doubt that Verstappen will walk away from this season with his reputation embellished regardless of the championship outcome.
“It was another masterclass from Max,” Red Bull Racing boss Laurent Mekies told Sky Sports.
“You can probably feel that Max probably had some margin at some stage. When he needed to push, he was able to bring more to the table.”
Those words will cause some mild alarm at McLaren given the post-disqualification title picture.
McLaren and Norris could afford for Red Bull Racing and Verstappen to recapture their good form without it posing a tangible championship threat.
Now, however, the idea of a change in the pecking order is meaningful.
“Turn 1 was pretty shocking on my behalf,” Norris reflected, before his disqualification, of his botched attempted to hold the lead off the line. “But actually I’m more thankful it didn’t cost me the race win today.
“I think just our lack of speed, lack of performance, today was a much bigger issue.
“Of course I’m not proud of turn 1, but we didn’t lose today because of that; it was because we weren’t fast enough.
“Max did a good job. Red Bull were quick. They deserved the win.”
McLaren boss Andrea Stella was of the same opinion.
“I think we have to acknowledge that Red Bull and Verstappen today were a little bit faster,” he told Sky Sports before his cars had their legality tested.
“Honestly, Max was faster than us in pretty much all conditions.”
Max pips Lando in CHAOTIC Vegas start | 02:20
ANTONELLI’S DRIVE OF THE DAY KEEPS PIASTRI AT BAY
Andrea Kimi Antonelli benefits from the double disqualification too, with the Italian rookie promoted onto his third career podium — and his second in succession — behind teammate George Russell, who moves up to second place.
It was just reward for the teenager, who put in a superlative drive from 17th on the grid after a disastrous wet-weather qualifying performance.
Antonelli was up to 13th at the first virtual safety car after starting on soft tyres, at which point Mercedes brought him into the pits for a set for hards.
Those hard tyres would run until the end of the race in a masterclass of management.
The strategy promoted him all the way to fourth in the final stint, where he was ideally positioned to help Russell — whose car was struggling with a power steering problem and whose own tyres were cooked from overuse — hold a place on the podium from Piastri and Charles Leclerc.
What started as a management masterclass became a demonstration in centimetre-perfect defensive driving. Despite having tyres that were almost 20 laps older, Antonelli successfully kept Piastri behind him.
Only a five-second penalty for a start infringement demoted him to fifth — though that proved immaterial with McLaren’s disqualifications.
“How he managed to treat the tyres, how he balanced his driving to make it go quick, was really impressive,” Mercedes boss Toto Wolff told Sky Sports.
Oscar on start: “Barged out of the way” | 01:56
For Piastri, though, Antonelli’s perfect drive was the last thing he needed.
In a continuation of his luckless run in Las Vegas following the qualifying yellow flags, he was barged out of the way by Liam Lawson at the start in an incident that could so easily have put him out of the race on the spot.
Lawson locked up into the first turn, responding to Russell locking up immediately in front of him. The stewards described it as a first-lap incident and chose not to issue a penalty.
But the damage was done. Piastri got stuck behind Isack Hadjar, who detached him from the lead group and left him vulnerable to Leclerc, who got ahead of him before strategy righted the order.
That Antonelli could then get ahead of him was just an extension of a weekend on which nothing went right.
“I felt like I was one of the only people who actually braked to make the corner and I got barged out of the way. Apparently that’s fine,” Piastri told Sky Sports dryly. “It is what it is.
“From start to finish it just felt like there were some tough moments through the race. I felt like there were some good moments of pace — like in clean air we were really quick — but just difficult before I got the clean air and difficult after it ran out.”
Lando takes Pole in wet Vegas Qualifying | 01:43
DIRE DAYS AT FERRARI
Ferrari president John Elkann must be thinking what else he can say to coax performance from his team.
Certainly throwing his drivers under the bus to praise the car didn’t work — in fact Las Vegas appeared to demonstrate exactly the opposite.
Ferrari was shown up again as being the least competitive of the frontrunning teams, and after Leclerc and Lewis Hamilton finished sixth and 10th, the team has just about lost touch with second in the constructors championship.
The Italian squad is 53 points behind Mercedes in second and 13 points adrift of one-car Red Bull Racing in third.
This was despite some impressive passages of performance from both drivers.
Hamilton started the race 19th but was up seven places by the early virtual safety car.
That was despite starting on the hard tyre, which offered less grip off the line.
He rose to fifth before making his late pit stop, but the medium tyre surprisingly offered him no notable performance improvement, leaving him stranded in 10th, unable to get ahead of Sauber’s Nico Hülkenberg on the same strategy.
He was despondent after the race.
“I feel terrible,” he told Sky Sports. “It’s been the worst season ever. No matter how much I try, it just keeps getting worse.
“I’m trying everything in and out of the car.”
Whereas Hamilton’s disappointment was expressed in typically downcast fashion, Leclerc’s carefully chosen words after rising from ninth to sixth.
“It’s not a good result,” he said. “P6 is very disappointing.
“I felt like it was probably the best race of the season in terms of personal performance. I felt like, honestly, all the laps were quali laps and there weren’t many mistakes. I’m very happy with my own performance, but P6 is very frustrating.”
That certainly doesn’t sound like a driver whose lack of focus is failing to get the most out of the car.
Perhaps another motivations speech from above is needed.