Fresh off consecutive victories in Mexico and Brazil, championship leader Lando Norris has tempered expectations ahead of the Las Vegas Grand Prix, admitting that McLaren could face their toughest weekend of the season under the Strip’s cold night lights.
Norris, who now holds a 24-point advantage over teammate Oscar Piastri, was blunt when asked whether Las Vegas’ conditions might help McLaren this year. “Hinder, for sure. I think it was our worst race last year, so I'm not really looking forward to it,” Norring told Sky Sports .
McLaren struggled heavily in Vegas in 2023, with Norris finishing sixth and Piastri seventh despite having a title-winning car. The low-temperature sessions and unusually slippery surface exposed weaknesses McLaren has worked to address over the past 12 months.
“We've been trying to work quite hard on improving those things,” Norris said. “We know Mercedes were incredibly strong there last year, as well as Red Bull and Ferraris. I think we were the bottom of those four. So yeah, we'll wait and see.”
Despite the worry, Norris insisted his comments were not pessimistic, but honest. When a journalist suggested he sounded overly negative, the Brit doubled down. “I can say what I want. I can think what I want. I'd say what I always am is, 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.” He clarified that he wasn’t predicting disaster just a tougher weekend. “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.” Norris did note there are venues ahead that suit McLaren better. “We know Abu Dhabi and Qatar are ones we are looking forward to.
Las Vegas just a little bit less, because they've probably been some of our weakest races over the last two years.” McLaren team principal Andrea Stella, however, believes the team has learned from its mistakes. “Vegas last year was one of the most difficult races,” Stella said, recalling issues with tyre behaviour, aerodynamic balance and graining.
“The review from Vegas last year gave us a lot of information to try and find a way to improve… from a tyre point of view, from an aerodynamic efficiency point of view, and from a car set up point of view, we know in which direction we should change compared to last year.”
Still, Stella cautioned that improvement cannot be guaranteed. “Will it be enough to be competitive now? We will only see it in Vegas, but definitely we took actions… the performance wasn’t satisfactory enough.” Mercedes dominated Las Vegas in 2024, with George Russell taking pole and victory and Lewis Hamilton completing a one-two.
But team principal Toto Wolff has played down the possibility of a repeat. “I've said, ‘let's just keep exactly the same car that we had last year, let's not change it’. But unfortunately, that's not the case anymore,” Wolff joked. “We've got to be very analytical of the car that we need for Las Vegas… but I doubt it” he added, acknowledging the challenge of replicating a performance delivered with last year’s very different package.