Formula 1 championship leader Lando Norris has admitted he expects McLaren to face challenges in Las Vegas – a race where the Briton could potentially narrow the world title fight down to just himself and teammate Oscar Piastri.
Norris currently holds a 49-point lead over reigning world champion Max Verstappen, who sits in third. Should that gap extend to 58 points after the Las Vegas Grand Prix, Verstappen would be mathematically eliminated from title contention.
However, last year, the McLaren car struggled significantly on the Las Vegas circuit, primarily due to tire graining. This issue prevented both Norris and Piastri from breaking into the top five in either qualifying or the race.
“It’s very difficult, super low grip,” the Briton explained last year after practice. “I think we could be faster with a road car than with our car.”
Twelve months later, McLaren is dominating Formula 1 and has already secured the Constructors' World Championship. McLaren team principal Andrea Stella doesn't anticipate significant problems for his drivers, noting that this season's Pirelli tires are much more resistant to graining. However, Norris disagrees, primarily due to the expected low temperatures, which could drop to as low as 7 degrees Celsius (45 degrees Fahrenheit).
“The colder weather will definitely negatively affect McLaren,” Norris explained. “Last year, that was our worst race. So, I’m not very enthusiastic about going there. We’re trying to improve our performance, but we know that Mercedes were incredibly strong there last year, and the same goes for Red Bull and Ferrari. I think we’ll be at the bottom of the top four in the standings.”
“I know we’ll be very strong in Abu Dhabi and Qatar, but not in Las Vegas. In the last two years, we’ve had some of our weakest races there.”
“We definitely won’t be fast, but we won’t be in 10th place either. I just think it will be difficult to win; last year we were far from the front. This year, there have been quite a few races where we weren’t the fastest, but we still won,” Lando added.