Lando Norris reacts as ‘frustrating’ Las Vegas DSQ announced

Lando Norris has dubbed his disqualification in the Las Vegas Grand Prix “frustrating”, following a technical infringement.

Norris finished second behind Max Verstappen in the race, which saw his championship lead to Oscar Piastri briefly increase to 30 points, and Verstappen set to have been 42 points behind with two races to go. With this disqualification, however, his lead in the Drivers’ standings now sits at 24 points to both drivers.

Lando Norris reacts to ‘frustrating’ Las Vegas GP disqualification

Team principal Andrea Stella issued an apology to both of his drivers after both Norris and Piastri were disqualified from the Las Vegas Grand Prix, after both McLaren cars were found to have exceeded the maximum plank wear allowed in race conditions.

“During the race, both cars experienced unexpected, high levels of porpoising not seen in the Practice sessions, which led to excessive contact with the ground,” Stella explained.

“We apologise to Lando and Oscar for the loss of points today, at a critical time in their Championship campaigns after two strong performances from them all weekend.”

For Norris, his plank was found to have been 0.07mm and 0.12mm below the required 9mm thickness at its measuring points, which resulted in a disqualification.

In taking victory, Verstappen effectively halved his deficit in the World Championship standings to the leader with two rounds remaining and, while Norris is still the heavy favourite with sports betting sites to earn a first title, he admitted his disappointment at losing out on an 18-point haul in Las Vegas.

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That said, he will look to dust himself down to go again in Qatar at the next race.

“A frustrating end to today,” Norris said.

“We had to do some managing towards the end of the race and now we know it was due to some issues on our car, which have unfortunately resulted in us being disqualified.

“It’s frustrating to lose so many points. As a team, we’re always pushing to find as much performance as we can, and we clearly didn’t get that balance right today.

“Nothing I can do will change that now, instead full focus switches to Qatar, where we’ll aim to go out and deliver the best possible performance in every session.”

Norris, along with the rest of the field, has two opportunities to score points at the Qatar Grand Prix, with the final Sprint of the season taking place in Lusail in the second leg of Formula 1’s final triple-header.

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