F1 TITLE RACE: LANDO NORRIS INSISTS VEGAS SHAMBLES DIDN'T MATTER
Lando Norris remains focused on the F1 title despite his Las Vegas DSQ. The McLaren driver leads Verstappen by 24 points heading to Qatar.
Lando Norris says his focus on winning his first Formula One title hasn't changed, even after he and his McLaren teammate were kicked out of the Las Vegas Grand Prix. This result put Red Bull’s Max Verstappen back in the title chase. McLaren's team boss, Andrea Stella, says they didn't take excessive risks with their car setup in Las Vegas.
Verstappen won the race in Nevada, with Norris coming in second and Piastri fourth. But, after the race, officials found that the skid blocks on their cars were worn down too much, below the legal limit of 9 mm, leading to their disqualification.
Before the race, Verstappen trailed Norris by 49 points. Now, with Norris and Piastri losing their points, he's only 24 points behind—the same gap as Piastri—as they head to Qatar. Norris can still win the title here, but he insists he doesn't feel any extra pressure from Verstappen closing in.
We've seen him as a threat all year, even when he was further back, Norris said. We know what he and Red Bull can do, so nothing's changed.
There's no reason to change how we do things. We've been doing well, and I'm happy with our performance. We know what we need to work on. I didn't think we had a bad weekend or result in Las Vegas, so that's good.
Las Vegas was still a setback for Norris. If not for the disqualification, he would be heading to Qatar with a 30-point lead over Piastri and 42 over Verstappen, giving him a better shot at the title.
"Of course, it hurts," he said. Everyone puts in a lot of effort each weekend, and it felt like it all went to waste. The mechanics, engineers, and everyone at McLaren feel let down.
We're all bummed, but I found it easy to move on, take a few days off, and get ready for this weekend.
Piastri echoed these feelings and made it clear he wouldn't sacrifice his own chances to help Norris against Verstappen. We talked about it briefly, and the answer is no, he said. I'm tied with Max in points, and I still have a good chance of winning if things go my way, so that's how we'll approach it.
With a 24-point lead over his rivals and 58 points up for grabs this weekend (including a sprint race), Norris must score two points more than both of them to secure the title, or one point if he wins Sunday’s race.
McLaren's Andrea Stella addressed the situation, saying that he doesn't think the team pushed the car's ride height too close to the limit. He said the unexpected bouncing of the cars caught them off guard from the start of the race.
Based on practice data, we didn't think we were taking big risks with the ride height, and we even added a safety margin for qualifying and the race, he said.
The specific problem was the unexpected bouncing, which caused the car to move up and down a lot, Stella explained. This was worse because of the race conditions and wasn't something we saw in practice or expected based on our predictions.
DISCOVER WHY JONATHAN WHEATLEY BELIEVES RED BULL’S STRUGGLES FUEL MAX VERSTAPPEN’S OUTRAGE
Jonathan Wheatley claims Max Verstappen's criticism of the "anti-racing" 2026 regulations reflects Red Bull's early struggles.
Jonathan Wheatley thinks Max Verstappen’s harsh words about Formula 1’s 2026 rules say as much about Red Bull’s current struggles as they do about the new regulations.
Verstappen hasn’t held back at all; he’s been one of the loudest voices against F1’s new energy-harvesting era, calling the rules “anti-racing” during pre-season testing.
Just two races in, Verstappen’s only got eight points. After Shanghai, he walked away without scoring anything. He finished the sprint race in ninth just outside the points, mostly because he lost ground when his car bogged down from a lack of battery power right off the line.
Things didn’t get better in the main race. Verstappen tried to claw his way back, but he had to park his RB22 because of an ERS cooling problem.
He didn’t sugarcoat his feelings. Verstappen slammed the new energy management rules, energy harvesting, and super clipping, all of it, as “fundamentally flawed". He called the racing itself a "joke". For him, the whole thing’s starting to feel more like Mario Kart than real racing.
“I swapped the simulator for my Nintendo Switch and have been practising Mario Kart, actually!” Verstappen joked when someone asked if sim time gives drivers an advantage now. “Honestly, I’m getting good at finding the mushrooms. The blue shell’s a bit tougher, but I’m working on it. No rockets yet, but they’re coming.”
He also warned F1’s leaders that these new rules could “eventually ruin the sport; it’ll come back to bite them.”
Not everyone’s moved by Verstappen’s complaints. Juan Pablo Montoya went as far as telling him, "There's the door.” Guenther Steiner, the former Haas boss, said it came off as nothing more than “toys out of the pram when it doesn’t go his way.”
Meanwhile, things look very different for Charles Leclerc. He’s been fighting for podiums in Australia and China and is loving the new era.
“I really enjoyed it,” Leclerc said. “Yeah, sometimes the overtakes feel a little fake if someone messes up their battery management; you get this huge speed difference. But we’re all learning when to push and when to risk it, and that’s creating some great overtaking spots. Today was a perfect example.”
Wheatley, watching all this, figures opinions on the new rules depend on how well one's doing. If you ask the guys up front, Ferrari and Mercedes, they love the new racing. The teams chasing them? Not so much.
He told reporters after the Chinese Grand Prix, “Talk to the Ferrari drivers; they’ll say it was a brilliant day. If you’re not winning, you just want to be able to race cleanly. Honestly, I didn’t see anything fake; every driver was fighting hard and fair. The midfield battles are fantastic; there’s a lot to like.”
And as for Verstappen’s comments? Wheatley gets it. When you’re struggling, it’s easy to point fingers.
FRED VASSEUR REJECTS TEAM ORDERS AS FERRARI DRIVERS DUEL CLEANLY IN SHANGHAI
Lewis Hamilton secures his first Ferrari podium at the Chinese GP as Fred Vasseur praises his drivers' clean racing.
Fred Vasseur felt pretty good about Ferrari’s performance in the Chinese Grand Prix, especially the way his drivers fought each other so cleanly, even though, as he admitted, it could’ve ended up looking like a disaster.
Ferrari started the race in third and fourth, and, right from the get-go, both drivers didn’t hold back. They actually got ahead of the Mercedes for a bit, but it didn't last; they ended up getting passed again. In those early laps, the two Ferraris were stuck between the Mercedes cars: Kimi Antonelli stretched his lead while George Russell stayed glued to their tails.
Lewis Hamilton led George Russell early on, and those two swapped places a bunch of times. Ferrari’s drivers did, too. There were moments when they went side by side, pushing the absolute limit, without ever making contact. Honestly, they kept at it almost the entire race. The last big move happened on Lap 40. Hamilton passed Leclerc and held onto third place, finally putting a red car on the podium for the first time this year.
Even with all that fighting, both Ferraris came home without a scratch. The drivers both said they had a blast; it was tough, hard racing, but always clean.
Vasseur, who runs the show at Ferrari, was quick to praise them. “Huge respect for both of them,” he told the press. “They’re total pros, and it just made sense to let them race. Sure, sometimes you risk looking stupid if things go wrong, but that’s a chance I’m willing to take.”
He was clear about his philosophy early in the season: you’ve got to let the drivers race. No team orders from the pit wall, just a chance to let them build up the team spirit by pushing each other. “This is how you make real progress,” Vasseur said. “As long as they race like they did today, I won’t freeze the positions. Even on the radio, they were telling us they were having fun.”
Once Hamilton got past Leclerc on Lap 40, the order was set. Hamilton got his first podium for Ferrari, which was huge even if his first season with them had been tough so far. Vasseur wasn’t worried, though.
“It’s so much easier the second year,” Vasseur explained. “He’s been part of the project for a while now; he started working with us as far back as mid-2025, doing simulator runs. He’s got more of a stake in this now compared to when he just turned up last January, and the car was already built. He knows everyone better, and working with the team is just smoother.”
But Vasseur knows Ferrari still has a big gap to Mercedes. The team has shown some solid pace in these first two races, but closing that gap will take time. “We’ve got to keep chipping away with those small gains, that’s how we’ll catch up.”
Right now, Ferrari’s battles out on track aren’t causing any problems. As the season goes on, though, Vasseur’s going to have to keep a lid on any tension because the championship’s heating up. Ferrari trails Mercedes by 31 points, and Leclerc and Hamilton are both chasing Russell for the drivers’ title, sitting 17 and 18 points behind.
If Ferrari’s going to have any shot at beating Mercedes, they’ll need to be on it every step of the way and stay ready to jump if their rivals make a mistake.
