McLaren reveal 'concerning' moment they 'knew' Piastri and Norris would be disqualified

McLaren have revealed the 'concerning' moment they 'knew' both Oscar Piastri and Lando Norris would be disqualified from the Las Vegas Grand Prix following an internal investigation.

The papaya driver duo crossed the line in P2 (NOR) and P4 (PIA) last weekend after title rival Max Verstappen took the chequered flag in Saturday's night race.

But after a significant delay and inspections on the skid wear of both cars, Norris and Piastri were disqualified, with the FIA stewards confirming that both McLarens had exceeded the legal amount of skid wear allowed after the race.

As a result of the race result being nullified, both McLaren drivers were removed from the final classification and had the relevant championship points eliminated, with the title fight now rumbling on into this weekend's Qatar GP.

Ahead of the penultimate race weekend of the season, McLaren team principal Andrea Stella has shared the outcome of his team's investigation into the disqualification, emphasising that the infringement was not intentional.

Stella explains McLaren disqualification reasons

The Woking based squad looked into the issue ahead of this weekend's race in Qatar, admitting that they quickly became aware in Vegas that there could be a major issue after both cars began to experience significant porpoising which the team had not accounted for.

During the Las Vegas GP, Norris and Piastri were both instructed to adjust their driving as sparks flew off the underbelly of their cars, leading fans to speculate that McLaren knew they could be facing disqualification.

Speaking after McLaren's internal review of the situation, Stella said: “From the early laps of the race, it was clear from the data that the level of unexpected porpoising would be a concern."

“We were able to monitor the situation better on Lando’s car using telemetry data, but it was made more difficult on Oscar’s car, after we lost one of the sensors we use to establish the level of grounding.

“We realised relatively soon that this level of porpoising was causing a high level of skid wear energy and this is the reason why both drivers started to take remedial actions in various parts of the circuit.

"Unfortunately, we also saw that, because of the car operating window and the circuit characteristics, most of these actions were not effective enough in reducing porpoising.”

The F1 boss maintained that this level of porpoising was unprecedented for McLaren based on what they had seen in the earlier sessions of the weekend, but that it was exacerbated by the conditions during the race.

The team head to Qatar with Norris leading the championship and both Piastri and Max Verstappen just 24 points behind him.

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