Lando Norris says McLaren’s bad night in Vegas last year turned into a goldmine.
Las Vegas has been a stubborn riddle for Woking since it joined the calendar. The low-grip surface, long straights and endless slow corners have kept the papaya cars out of the podium frame in both editions so far. In 2024, while McLaren were busy muscling into the title fight elsewhere, the Strip bit back: George Russell headed a Mercedes one-two from Lewis Hamilton as Max Verstappen wrapped up his fourth championship. Norris was sixth, 43 seconds adrift, with Oscar Piastri seventh.
And yet, in the mess, Norris started tinkering. With little to lose in the final stint, he treated the race like a private test session.
“Because we were so bad, I just ended up trying as much stuff as I could,” he said this week, notably coy on the specifics. “Actually, I’m not gonna say. I’m fighting for a lot, so I want to reveal the least amount possible!”
What we do know: the pace came to him.
“If you look at the race trace now, you can quite easily see the final stint from me was a lot more in line with Ferrari, Red Bull, Mercedes,” he explained. “I think Lewis’s last stint last year was pretty incredible, so we were still quite a long way off what Mercedes was, but we looked more raceable. It was just too little, too late, and so I think we’ve learned from that.”
Norris hinted the gains came from how he drove the car rather than an epiphany in set-up. He mixed up lines, corner approaches and inputs to soothe the MCL’s skittishness on the glassy asphalt.
“It’s a long race, a lot of laps, and we were struggling consistently with the same thing,” he said. “So I was just experimenting with a lot; experimenting with my driving, with driving styles, approaches to the car – which is not always easy – trying to figure out how the car likes to get driven.”
It’s the kind of iterative, driver-led learn-as-you-go that separates a salvage job from a write-off. And while he’s keeping the tricks to himself, the takeaway is clear: McLaren left Vegas last year with a direction.
“Doesn’t mean this year is going to be mega,” he cautioned, “but it’s certainly given us a direction to go in. I’m not going to tell you what I found — you can try to figure it out.”
There’s a bit more on the line this time, too. Norris arrives in Vegas leading the championship, 34 points up on teammate Piastri. He can’t seal the deal this weekend, but he can – theoretically – knock Verstappen out of contention before the penultimate round in Qatar; the three-time champion trails by 49 with a maximum of 58 available beyond this event.
Away from the points math, there’s a milestone to mark. This weekend is Norris’s 150th grand prix start, all with McLaren – matching David Coulthard’s tally as the most-capped driver in the team’s history.
“It’s a big number,” Norris said. “Match DC for races with McLaren as well. That’s something I’m pretty proud of. This is quite an achievement. I still remember Australia 2019, being there on the grid, the lights going on and everything – didn’t feel that long ago!”
Vegas will demand a bit of that 2019 boldness: patience on a track that never quite offers the grip you expect, aggression when the tyres are finally awake, and enough feel to ride the surface changes without cooking the fronts. McLaren hasn’t unlocked it yet, but Norris thinks he has the map.
He’s just not sharing it.
