LAS VEGAS: McLaren’s Lando Norris is set to join an exclusive club in Formula 1 history with his 150th start at Saturday’s Las Vegas Grand Prix.
Norris, once deemed a prospective phenom, can live up to all the hype he received in his youth and move even closer to his maiden World Drivers’ Championship with a positive result in Sin City this weekend.
Norris has been locked in a heated championship duel with McLaren teammate Oscar Piastri throughout the season. Piastri started the season with four wins in the first six Grand Prixs and spent most of the season atop the WDC standings, leading Norris by as many as 34 points after Norris retired toward the end of August’s Dutch Grand Prix due to a mechanical failure.
Since that fateful day at Zandvoort, Norris has five podiums in six races and enters Las Vegas coming off consecutive victories at Mexico City and Brazil. On the other hand, Piastri has only landed on the podium once and was forced to retire in Azerbaijan. As a result, Norris has opened up a reasonably comfortable 24-point lead over Piastri with three races left.
While a 24-point cushion with three races left isn’t exactly a small margin, the fact that Norris was able to turn his fortunes around so suddenly after Zandvoort means that he knows as well as anyone just how quickly the championship picture can change with just one bad weekend.
