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Despite the hype surrounding the Sin City Grand Prix, Lando Norris is maintaining a level head regarding his chances of claiming his first drivers' championship.

Norris currently holds a two-dozen point advantage over fellow McLaren driver Oscar Piastri and is ahead of Max Verstappen by 49 points, with only up to 83 points available across the final three events. But, after pulling off a remarkable comeback from 34 points behind his teammate after the Dutch Grand Prix in August, Norris is concentrating on performing with the clinical precision that propelled him to the lead of the championship.

"Things can easily turn in the other direction once more even though I don't want it to," he stated. "That's racing, you know. You can get lucky. You can also be unlucky. No matter what happens. There's really no point getting excited or thinking about it. I continue to view it as something that's quite far away."

Norris has found his peak performance at a critical moment—after difficulties with the vehicle in the opening half of the campaign—at the same time that Piastri has shed the disciplined, nearly perfect ease that previously made him seem to be a future title winner. Notably, Norris maintained a remarkable level of composure all along, insisting even in the face of challenges—like his retirement from the Zandvoort race—that he would stick to his strategy and approach each session with the identical unwavering attention to detail. This approach has paid off.

All the while, McLaren have worked hard to attempt to preserve a level playing field for their pair of racers, and it has at times been something of difficult experience, especially at Monza when the squad directed the Australian to surrender the runner-up spot to his teammate after he had lost the spot due to a delayed tire change. Some fans did not take well to what was considered the team unnecessarily interfering with their competitors.

Norris has claimed victory in the last two grands prix, in Mexico and São Paulo, and was booed on the podium at each, yet he remained unfazed. "Once you are leading, many people want to bring you down. They don't like seeing you winning. I consider it a good thing," he remarked.

"It just amuses me. While standing on the winner's stage in Interlagos, I really loved it. It was very satisfying. You finally sense that you're doing success.

"I don't mind, provided that I win. If I believe I'm doing it the right way, which I feel like that's the case, as long as I feel like I'm putting effort into remaining true to myself and those kinds of things, then I'm not too fussed about the rest of it."

Vegas, on the other hand, must be mastered, and it is a circuit ideal for the McLaren. It shares similarities with Canada and Baku: minimal aerodynamic grip, chilly conditions, and slippery surfaces. They are the sole pair of circuits in the current championship where McLaren have failed to claim a single top-three finish, and the leader was cautious again about their prospects in Nevada. Yet, his objective in the immediate future is straightforward: end the race in front of Piastri and the points he requires will come.

Practice Shows Mixed Results for Championship Rivals

Charles Leclerc led the leaderboard in FP1 on what was remained a sandy and very low-grip surface. Alex Albon was runner-up, with the Red Bull star in fourth, the McLaren ace in P6, and the Australian eighth. During the more representative night running of second practice, Norris was fastest from the Silver Arrows of the Italian rookie, with his teammate 14th; however, the practice lost almost all of the last third of track time to inspect a reported loose drain cover at turn 17.

The issue is treated with caution on a temporary track where, at the inaugural Las Vegas GP staged in 2023, a loose drain cover struck Carlos Sainz's Ferrari, heavily harming it and leading to the practice to be ended.

Mercedes Announce Stake Sale

Mercedes have revealed that their team principal Toto Wolff has divested a fifteen percent share in his investment firm, equating to a five percent ownership in the squad, to American billionaire George Kurtz. 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 as much as £230m from the sale, with the Brackley-based outfit having been valued at £4.57bn, a record for an F1 team.