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Amid all hype surrounding the Sin City Grand Prix, Lando Norris is maintaining a level head about his prospects of claiming his maiden drivers' championship.

The British driver presently holds a two-dozen point lead over fellow McLaren driver Oscar Piastri and is ahead of Max Verstappen by nearly fifty points, with only up to 83 points up for grabs across the remaining trio of races. But, after staging a extraordinary recovery from 34 points behind Piastri after the Dutch Grand Prix in August, Norris is focused on executing with the methodical approach that lifted him to the top of the championship.

"It can easily turn the opposite way again as much as I don't want it to," he stated. "That's racing, as we all know. Sometimes you also have luck. You can end up unlucky. No matter what happens. There's really no point becoming overjoyed or thinking about it. I continue to view it as a goal that's quite far away."

Norris has discovered his peak performance at a critical moment—after difficulties with the vehicle in the opening half of the season—at the same time that his teammate has shed the controlled, nearly flawless ease that had for so long made him appear to be a future title winner. Importantly, Norris kept a remarkable level of equanimity throughout, insisting even in the face of setbacks—like his retirement from the Zandvoort race—that he would stick to his gameplan and work every outing with the identical unwavering attention to detail. This approach has yielded results.

All the while, the team have worked hard to try to preserve a fair competition for their pair of racers, and it has at times been something of torturous experience, especially at the Italian Grand Prix when the team directed the Australian to surrender the runner-up spot to his teammate after he had fallen behind due to a delayed tire change. Some fans did not take well to what was seen as the team needlessly manipulating their drivers.

Norris has claimed victory in the previous pair of races, in Mexico City and São Paulo, and was booed on the winner's rostrum at both, leaving him unfazed. "Once you are on top, a lot of people try to undermine you. They don't want to see you winning. I consider it a positive sign," he said.

"It makes me laugh. While standing on the podium in Interlagos, I truly enjoyed it. It was very satisfying. You finally sense that you are achieving success.

"I don't mind, as long as I come out on top. As long as I feel like I'm doing it the correct manner, which I feel like that's the case, so long as I feel like I'm putting hard work into remaining true to myself and those kinds of things, then I am not concerned with the rest of it."

Las Vegas, on the other hand, needs to be mastered, and it is not a track ideal for the McLaren. It shares similarities with Montreal and Baku: minimal aerodynamic grip, chilly conditions, and slippery surfaces. They are the only two circuits this season where the papaya squad have been unable to secure a single top-three finish, and the leader was circumspect again about their chances this weekend. Yet, his task in the immediate future is simple: end the race in front of Piastri and the points he requires will come.

Practice Sees Varied Outcomes for Title Contenders

The Ferrari driver topped the leaderboard in first practice on what was remained a sandy and extremely low-grip surface. The Williams racer was second, with Verstappen fourth, Norris sixth, and the Australian eighth. In the more representative evening session of FP2, Norris was quickest from the Silver Arrows of Kimi Antonelli, with Piastri 14th; though, the practice was interrupted for almost all of the final 20 minutes of running to inspect a reported loose manhole cover at the penultimate corner.

This problem is taken seriously on a temporary track where, at the inaugural Las Vegas GP held in 2023, a dislodged manhole smashed into Carlos Sainz's Ferrari, heavily damaging it and leading to the session to be aborted.

The German Team Confirm Stake Transaction

The eight-time constructors' champions have revealed that their boss Toto Wolff has sold a 15% stake in his holding company, representing a 5% share in the squad, to US tycoon the cybersecurity magnate. The investor is the CEO and founder of the digital protection firm CrowdStrike. Wolff will stay on as team principal and may receive up to £230 million from the sale, with Mercedes having been valued at £4.57bn, a record for an F1 team.