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Despite the hype surrounding the Las Vegas Grand Prix, McLaren's lead driver is maintaining a calm demeanor about his prospects of claiming his first drivers' championship.

Norris presently has a 24-point lead over teammate Oscar Piastri and leads Max Verstappen by nearly fifty points, with only a maximum of 83 points up for grabs across the remaining trio of races. But, after staging a remarkable recovery from a significant deficit his teammate following the Dutch Grand Prix in August, Norris is focused on performing with the clinical precision that propelled him to the top of the championship.

"It can easily go in the other direction again as much as I don't want it to," he stated. "That's racing, you know. Sometimes you get lucky. You can end up unfortunate. No matter what happens. It's no point getting excited or dwelling on it. I continue to view it as a goal that's quite far away."

Norris has found his best form at a crucial moment—having struggled with the car in the opening half of the season—while Piastri has lost the disciplined, nearly perfect composure that previously made him seem to be a champion in waiting. Notably, Norris kept a remarkable level of equanimity all along, insisting despite setbacks—like his retirement from the Zandvoort race—that he would stick to his strategy and approach every outing with the same relentless focus on specifics. This approach has yielded results.

All the while, the team have gone to no little effort to try to preserve a fair competition for their pair of racers, and it has at times been something of torturous process, especially at the Italian Grand Prix when the team instructed Piastri to cede second place to his teammate after he had fallen behind due to a slow pit stop. Certain spectators were unhappy with what was seen as the team needlessly manipulating their competitors.

The championship leader has claimed victory in the previous pair of grands prix, in Mexico and Brazil, and was jeered on the winner's rostrum at both, leaving him unmoved. "Once you are leading, many people try to bring you down. They don't like seeing you succeeding. I see it as a good thing," he said.

"It makes me laugh. When I was on the podium in Brazil, I really enjoyed it. The experience was quite satisfying. You finally feel like you are achieving something right.

"It doesn't bother me, provided that I win. As long as I feel like I'm doing it the correct manner, which I feel like I am, so long as I feel like I'm putting hard work into being who I am and those kinds of things, then I'm not too fussed with the rest of it."

Las Vegas, on the other hand, must be conquered, and it is not a track ideal for the McLaren. It shares similarities with Montreal and Baku: low downforce, cool temperatures, and slippery surfaces. These are the only two circuits this season where the papaya squad have been unable to claim at least one podium place, and the leader was circumspect again about their chances in Nevada. Yet, his task in the short term is straightforward: finish in ahead of his teammate and the championship tally he needs will come.

Friday Running Shows Mixed Outcomes for Title Contenders

Charles Leclerc topped the leaderboard in first practice on what was remained a sandy and very low-grip track. The Williams racer was runner-up, with Verstappen fourth, Norris sixth, and the Australian eighth. In the more indicative night running of FP2, the Briton was quickest ahead of the Silver Arrows of the Italian rookie, with Piastri down in fourteenth; however, the practice was interrupted for almost all of the last third of running to check a suspected loose drain cover at the penultimate corner.

This problem is treated with caution on a temporary track where, at the first Nevada GP staged in 2023, a dislodged drain cover smashed into Carlos Sainz's Ferrari, heavily damaging it and leading to the practice to be ended.

The German Team Announce Stake Transaction

The eight-time constructors' champions have confirmed that their team principal the Austrian executive has sold a 15% stake in his investment firm, representing a five percent ownership in the squad, to American billionaire the cybersecurity magnate. The investor is the chief executive and creator of the cybersecurity company the tech giant. The team principal will stay on as boss and could earn as much as £230m from the deal, with the Brackley-based outfit having been valued at £4.57 billion, a record for an F1 team.