Lando Norris anxiety emerges as McLaren set for Las Vegas GP struggle

McLaren F1 star Lando Norris has issued doubts about McLaren’s pace at the Las Vegas Grand Prix this weekend.

The Brit is on the verge of claiming a maiden world championship title, sat 24 points ahead of team-mate Oscar Piastri, and 49 points ahead of four-time world champion Max Verstappen, who beat Norris to the 2024 title.

There are three race weekends remaining in the season, including this weekend at the Las Vegas GP, where there are 25 points on offer given it is not a sprint weekend.

But Norris believes that it will be difficult to claim a race win this weekend, at a track that he thinks is one of McLaren’s weakest.

There have only been two previous races at the Las Vegas Street Circuit, and Norris suffered a DNF with Piastri 10th in 2023, before the two drivers finished sixth and seventh respectively in 2024’s edition.

Nevertheless, Norris has won the last three races when taking into account sprints, and a good result in Vegas would allow him to have one hand on the championship trophy.

Asked by media at the Brazilian GP last time out why he had been speaking negatively about the next race in Vegas, Norris said: "I always try and be as honest as I can be. If I don't think we're going to be quick, I don't think we're going to be quick. And I'm not saying I'm going to be 10th. I'm just saying I think it's going to be difficult to win. We were a long way off - just go and look at the data from last year. Look at the race traces - we were miles off.

"There have been plenty of races where we’ve not been quick enough this year. It’s not like we've won every single race and you're expecting me to say those things. I’m just giving my opinion on whether I think it’s going to be easy.

"I won last weekend by 30 seconds - like, very, very easy. I won today by pushing a lot more, only 10 seconds, and Max was probably the quickest out on track today.

"I'm giving my honest opinion on how I think we’re going to be. We’ve never been good there, so I'm not the most confident about going into that race.

"Maybe I'll win - then we’ll see. But I’m not going to lie and say, ‘Yeah, I’m very confident, and I think it's going to be an easy weekend', because I don’t think that’s how it’s going to be."

Can Norris claim his maiden title this weekend?

While the scary threat of four-time champion Verstappen could possibly be taken out of the title equation in Vegas, the chance for Norris' team-mate Piastri to be ruled out of the fight won't come this weekend.

So, no, Norris cannot win the title in Vegas, but a good result for the Brit would make it highly likely that he could wrap up his first drivers' championship victory in Qatar the following week.

Even if Norris was to win this weekend's race in Vegas and Piastri DNFs, the gap between the two drivers would still be sat at 49 points, not the 59-point margin that Norris would need to mathematically knock Piastri out of the fight.

No matter what, the fight between the two team-mates is going to go down to the final two race weekends of the season, a rather thrilling reality for F1 fans.

ANALYSIS: How Max Verstappen can lose his championship crown in Las Vegas

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Sam Cook - Digital Journalist

Sam Cook is a talented young sports journalist and social media professional who now specialises in Formula 1, having previously worked as a football journalist and a local news reporter for a variety of different brands.

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