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Amid all hype around the Las Vegas Grand Prix, Lando Norris is maintaining a calm demeanor regarding his chances of claiming his first world title.

Norris presently holds a two-dozen point lead over fellow McLaren driver Oscar Piastri and is ahead of Max Verstappen by nearly fifty points, with just a maximum of 83 points available across the final three events. However, after staging a remarkable comeback from a significant deficit 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 championship.

"Things can easily go the opposite way once more even though I don't want it to," he commented. "That's motorsport, you know. You can get lucky. Other times you end up unfortunate. No matter what happens. It's no point getting excited or dwelling on it. I continue to do see it as something that remains far away."

Norris has found his best form at a crucial juncture—having struggled with the vehicle in the opening half of the season—at the same time that his teammate has shed the controlled, nearly perfect ease that had for so long made him seem to be a future title winner. Notably, Norris kept a impressive level of equanimity throughout, insisting even in the face of challenges—like his withdrawal from the Dutch GP—that he would stick to his gameplan and work each session with the same relentless focus on specifics. It has paid off.

All the while, McLaren have worked hard to attempt to preserve a level playing field for their pair of racers, and it has on occasion been a rather torturous process, especially at the Italian Grand Prix when the team directed the Australian to surrender the runner-up spot to Norris after he had lost the spot due to a delayed tire change. Certain spectators did not take well to what was considered the team unnecessarily manipulating their competitors.

The championship leader has won the last two grands prix, in Mexico and Brazil, and was booed on the winner's rostrum at both, yet he remained unmoved. "Once you are leading, many individuals try to undermine you. They don't want to see you succeeding. I consider it a positive sign," he said.

"It makes me laugh. While standing on the podium in Brazil, I truly loved it. It was quite satisfying. You finally feel like you are achieving success.

"I don't mind, provided that I come out on top. As long as I feel like I am competing the right manner, which I feel like that's the case, 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."

Vegas, meanwhile, must be mastered, and it is not a track suited to the British team. The layout has similarities with Canada and Baku: low downforce, chilly conditions, and low grip. They are the only two tracks this season where the papaya squad have failed to claim a single podium place, and Norris was circumspect again about their prospects this weekend. Still, his task in the short term is simple: end the race in front of his teammate and the championship tally he needs will come.

Friday Running Sees Mixed Outcomes for Championship Rivals

Charles Leclerc led the times in FP1 on what was still a sandy and very slippery surface. Alex Albon was runner-up, with Verstappen in fourth, Norris in P6, and Piastri in eighth. During the more representative night running of second practice, the Briton was fastest ahead of the Mercedes of the Italian rookie, with his teammate 14th; however, the practice lost almost all of the final 20 minutes of track time to inspect a reported loose manhole cover at the penultimate corner.

The issue is treated with caution on a temporary track where, at the first Las Vegas GP staged in 2023, a dislodged manhole smashed into the Ferrari, severely damaging it and causing the practice to be aborted.

Mercedes Confirm Ownership Sale

Mercedes have confirmed that their boss the Austrian executive has sold a 15% stake in his investment firm, equating to a 5% share in the squad, to American billionaire George Kurtz. The investor is the CEO and founder of the cybersecurity company the tech giant. The team principal will stay on as team principal and could earn as much as £230m from the deal, with Mercedes having been appraised at £4.57 billion, a new high for an F1 team.