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Amid all hype surrounding the Las Vegas Grand Prix, Lando Norris is keeping a calm demeanor regarding his prospects of securing his maiden drivers' championship.

Norris currently holds a two-dozen point advantage over teammate Oscar Piastri and is ahead of Max Verstappen by 49 points, with just up to 83 points available across the final three events. But, after pulling off a extraordinary comeback from a significant deficit Piastri following the Zandvoort race in August, Norris is concentrating on performing with the clinical precision that propelled him to the lead of the championship.

"It can easily go in the other direction once more as much as I hope it doesn't," he commented. "That's racing, as we all know. Sometimes you get lucky. Other times you end up unlucky. No matter what happens. It's no point getting excited or dwelling on it. I still view it as something that remains distant."

The 26-year-old has found his peak performance at a critical moment—having struggled with the car in the opening half of the season—at the same time that Piastri has lost the controlled, nearly flawless composure that had for so long made him appear to be a future title winner. Importantly, Norris maintained a remarkable level of equanimity all along, insisting despite setbacks—like his retirement from the Dutch GP—that he would adhere to his gameplan and work every outing with the identical unwavering focus on specifics. It has paid off.

Meanwhile, the team have gone to no little effort to attempt to maintain a fair competition for their pair of racers, and it has at times been a rather torturous experience, especially at Monza when the squad directed the Australian to surrender the runner-up spot to Norris following he had fallen behind because of a delayed tire change. Certain spectators did not take well to what was considered McLaren needlessly manipulating their drivers.

The championship leader has won the last two grands prix, in Mexico and Brazil, and was booed on the podium at each, yet he remained unmoved. "Once you are on top, a lot of people try to bring you down. They do not want to see you succeeding. I consider it a good thing," he remarked.

"It makes me laugh. When I was on the podium in Interlagos, I truly enjoyed it. The experience was very enjoyable. You finally feel like you are achieving success.

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

Vegas, meanwhile, needs to be conquered, and it is not a track ideal for the McLaren. It shares similarities with Canada and Baku: minimal aerodynamic grip, chilly conditions, and low grip. They are the only two tracks in the current championship where McLaren have failed to claim at least one podium place, and Norris was cautious once more about their prospects in Nevada. Yet, his objective in the short term is simple: finish in ahead of Piastri and the championship tally he needs will come.

Practice Shows Mixed Results for Championship Rivals

Charles Leclerc led the times in FP1 on what was still a sandy and very slippery surface. The Williams racer was runner-up, with the Red Bull star fourth, Norris sixth, and Piastri eighth. In the more representative evening session of second practice, Norris was fastest from the Silver Arrows of Kimi Antonelli, with his teammate down in fourteenth; though, the practice lost nearly the final 20 minutes of running to inspect a suspected unsecured drain cover at turn 17.

This problem is taken seriously on a temporary track where, at the inaugural Las Vegas GP staged in 2023, a dislodged manhole struck the Ferrari, severely damaging it and leading to the practice to be aborted.

The German Team Announce Ownership Transaction

Mercedes have confirmed that their boss Toto Wolff has divested a fifteen percent share in his holding company, representing a 5% share in the squad, to US tycoon George Kurtz. The investor is the CEO and founder of the digital protection firm CrowdStrike. Wolff will remain as boss and may receive up to £230m from the sale, with Mercedes having been appraised at £4.57 billion, a record for an F1 team.