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Amid the excitement surrounding the Las Vegas Grand Prix, McLaren's lead driver is keeping a level head about his chances of claiming his first world title.

The British driver presently has a 24-point lead over fellow McLaren driver Oscar Piastri and leads Max Verstappen by nearly fifty points, with only a maximum of eighty-three points up for grabs across the remaining trio of races. However, after staging a extraordinary recovery from 34 points behind Piastri after the Dutch Grand Prix in August, Norris is focused on performing with the clinical precision that lifted him to the top of the championship.

"It can quickly turn in the other direction once more even though I don't want it to," he commented. "That's motorsport, as we all know. Sometimes you get lucky. Other times you end up unfortunate. Whatever it may be. There's really not worth becoming overjoyed or thinking about it. I continue to view it as something that's quite far away."

Norris has found his best form at a critical juncture—having struggled with the vehicle in the first part of the season—while his teammate has lost the disciplined, nearly perfect ease that previously made him appear to be a champion in waiting. Importantly, Norris maintained a impressive level of composure throughout, asserting despite setbacks—like his retirement from the Dutch GP—that he would adhere to his gameplan and approach each session with the identical unwavering attention to detail. This approach has paid off.

All the while, the team have gone to no little effort to attempt to maintain a level playing field for their two drivers, and it has on occasion been a rather difficult experience, most notably at the Italian Grand Prix when the team instructed the Australian to cede second place to Norris following he had fallen behind due to a delayed tire change. Some fans were unhappy with what was considered McLaren unnecessarily manipulating their competitors.

Norris has claimed victory in the previous pair of grands prix, in Mexico 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 bring you down. They don't want to see you winning. I consider it a good thing," he said.

"It just makes me laugh. When I was on the winner's stage in Interlagos, I truly loved it. It was quite satisfying. You finally feel like you're doing something right.

"I don't mind, provided that I come out on top. If I believe I am competing the right manner, and I think that's the case, as long as I feel like I'm putting effort into being who I am and those kinds of things, then I'm not too fussed with the rest of it."

Las Vegas, meanwhile, needs to be mastered, and it is a circuit ideal for the McLaren. It shares similarities with Montreal and Azerbaijan: minimal aerodynamic grip, cool temperatures, and low grip. They are the only two tracks in the current championship where the papaya squad have failed to secure a single top-three finish, and Norris was circumspect again about their prospects in Nevada. Still, his objective in the short term is straightforward: end the race in front of his teammate and the championship tally he needs will come.

Practice Shows Mixed Results for Championship Rivals

Charles Leclerc topped the leaderboard in FP1 on what was still a dusty and extremely low-grip track. The Williams racer was second, with the Red Bull star fourth, the McLaren ace sixth, and the Australian eighth. In the more indicative evening session of FP2, the Briton was fastest from the Mercedes of the Italian rookie, with his teammate down in fourteenth; however, the session lost nearly the last third of running to check a reported loose drain cover at turn 17.

The issue is treated with caution on a street circuit where, at the first Las Vegas GP held in 2023, a loose drain cover smashed into Carlos Sainz's Ferrari, severely damaging it and leading to the session to be aborted.

Mercedes Announce Ownership Sale

The eight-time constructors' champions have confirmed that their team principal the Austrian executive has divested a fifteen percent share in his holding company, equating to a five percent ownership in the team, to US tycoon the cybersecurity magnate. Kurtz is the chief executive and creator of the digital protection firm CrowdStrike. The team principal will stay on as team principal and could earn up to £230m from the deal, with Mercedes having been appraised at £4.57 billion, a new high for an F1 team.