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Despite the hype surrounding the Las Vegas Grand Prix, Lando Norris is maintaining a calm demeanor regarding his chances of securing his maiden world title.

Norris presently holds a 24-point advantage over teammate Oscar Piastri and leads Max Verstappen by nearly fifty points, with just up to eighty-three points available across the remaining trio of races. But, after pulling off a extraordinary recovery from 34 points behind Piastri after the Zandvoort race in the summer, Norris is focused on performing with the methodical approach that lifted him to the lead of the championship.

"It can easily turn in the other direction once more as much as I don't want it to," he stated. "That's motorsport, you know. You can also have luck. Other times you end up unlucky. Whatever it may be. There's really not worth getting excited or dwelling on it. I continue to do see it as something that's quite far away."

The 26-year-old has found his peak performance at a crucial juncture—after difficulties with the car in the first part of the campaign—while Piastri has shed the disciplined, almost perfect ease that had for so long made him seem to be a future title winner. Importantly, Norris maintained a remarkable level of equanimity throughout, insisting even in the face of challenges—like his retirement from the Zandvoort race—that he would stick to his strategy and approach each session with the same relentless focus on specifics. This approach has paid off.

Meanwhile, McLaren have gone to no little effort to attempt to preserve a level playing field for their pair of racers, and it has at times been a rather torturous experience, most notably at the Italian Grand Prix when the squad directed the Australian to surrender second place to Norris following he had fallen behind because of a slow pit stop. Some fans were unhappy with what was seen as the team needlessly manipulating their drivers.

Norris has claimed victory in the last two races, in Mexico and Brazil, and was booed on the winner's rostrum at both, yet he remained unmoved. "Once you are leading, many individuals want to undermine you. They don't like seeing you winning. I consider it a good thing," he said.

"It amuses me. When I was on the podium in Brazil, I truly enjoyed it. The experience was very enjoyable. At last you sense that you are achieving success.

"It doesn't bother me, provided that I come out on top. As long as I believe I'm doing it the correct way, and I think I am, so long as I am confident I am dedicating hard work into remaining true to myself and similar principles, then I'm not too fussed with the rest of it."

Las Vegas, meanwhile, must be conquered, and it is not a track suited to the British team. The layout has similarities with Canada and Baku: low downforce, cool temperatures, and low grip. They are the only two tracks in the current championship where the papaya squad have been unable to secure at least one top-three finish, and the leader was cautious once more about their chances in Nevada. Still, his task in the short term is straightforward: end the race in ahead of his teammate and the points he requires will come.

Practice Sees Mixed Results for Title Rivals

Charles Leclerc topped the times in FP1 on what was still a sandy and extremely slippery track. The Williams racer was runner-up, with the Red Bull star in fourth, Norris in P6, and Piastri eighth. During the more indicative evening session of FP2, Norris was fastest from the Mercedes of the Italian rookie, with Piastri down in fourteenth; however, the session lost nearly the last third of track time to inspect a reported unsecured drain cover at turn 17.

The issue is taken seriously on a street circuit where, at the first Las Vegas GP staged in 2023, a loose manhole struck Carlos Sainz's Ferrari, heavily damaging it and leading to the practice to be ended.

Mercedes Announce Stake Sale

The eight-time constructors' champions have revealed that their team principal the Austrian executive has divested a 15% stake in his holding company, representing a five percent ownership in the team, to American billionaire the cybersecurity magnate. Kurtz is the chief executive and creator of the digital protection firm CrowdStrike. The team principal will stay on as boss and could earn as much as £230 million from the sale, with the Brackley-based outfit having been appraised at £4.57bn, a record for an F1 team.