McLaren expects no repeat of shocking 2024 Las Vegas performance

“It’s just very difficult, super low grip. I feel like I could drive a road car quicker than we drive at the minute…”

This is how unhappy Lando Norris was with his McLaren Formula 1 car after practice for the 2024 Las Vegas Grand Prix.

The Nevadan race turned out to be one of the worst in McLaren’s title-winning season, with Norris and Piastri out of the top five positions on both Saturday and Sunday, with a seven-tenth deficit in qualifying.

Struggling badly with graining on their Pirelli rubber, they both finished the race more than 40 seconds behind winner George Russell, though Norris was just 27 seconds away before a late pitstop allowing him to clinch the fastest-lap point.

Las Vegas will be a key round of the 2025 championship as Max Verstappen has reduced his deficit to fewer than 40 points to the McLaren racers in the drivers’ standings, meaning he will still be in contention regardless of what happens in the next round at Interlagos.

McLaren team principal Andrea Stella expects his outfit to do better this time around.

“Vegas, if anything, has proven to be a challenge for McLaren overall,” Stella commented. “Last year, we were not competitive. We needed to learn something, if anything, during the race, just to try and make some changes to see if we could stop the graining.

“This year, the tyres, they do grain much less than last year, so it could be a slightly different Vegas from this point of view. It will be interesting to see.”

Stella added that McLaren was going to focus on getting the most out of its car – as obvious as it might sound – given it has arguably failed to do so at times, having struggled at circuits such as Baku.

“I think for Lando and Oscar, there’s no problem in terms of track layout coming in the next four races,” the Italian added.

“If anything, we need to make sure that from a McLaren point of view, we are in condition to extract the full performance that is available in the car, like we have been able to do it here in Mexico. We have some reservations that at a few of the previous races, we have actually been able to do.”

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— The Autosport.com Team