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.
“I feel like I’ve very much been on top of a lot of things the last few weekends, but it’s a very difficult level to perform at all of the time,” Norris said. “I have incredible drivers that I’m up against. My expectation for myself is to try and perform at the same level. But that’s not always a guarantee. I know that it can change very quickly.”
Given the gap between Norris and Piastri ahead of Las Vegas, Norris could finish behind Piastri in every remaining race and still leave the final round in Abu Dhabi as world champion. That technically means that Norris could be better served by driving a cautious, trouble-free race as opposed to pushing flat out, but the 26-year-old doesn’t seem to be entering the final stretch with this approach.
“What’s done me so well the last few weekends (has been) going flat (out), staying out of trouble and staying out of the chaos behind,” Norris said. “It’s almost a safer bet in terms of pushing. So I think (taking fewer risks is) not the right mindset to have. I’ll come here this weekend to try and win. I’ll go to Qatar to try and win.”
The battle between Norris and Piastri has at times boiled over into the press, but Norris made it abundantly clear during Wednesday’s press conference that there’s no bad blood between the two championship-contending teammates.
In fact, their relationship is as good as ever, according to Norris.
“I think we have a lot of respect for one another,” Norris said. “We both understand the position that we’re in and we both treat the world of driving versus just personally what we like away from the track quite differently. ... We’re still different people, but in terms of our relationship, we get along well. We still work together well, and I think it’s still better than it’s ever been.”
Lando Norris doesn’t intend to let off gas entering Las Vegas despite WDC lead
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Lando Norris doesn’t intend to let off gas entering Las Vegas despite WDC lead
- 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
Vonn crashes out of Winter Olympics in brutal end to medal dream
- The 41-year-old was just 13 seconds into her run when she lost control
- Skiing legend was aiming to win another medal despite competing with a ruptured anterior cruciate ligament
CORTINA D’AMPEZZO, Italy: Lindsey Vonn crashed out of the Winter Olympics downhill on Sunday, brutally ending the American skiing great’s improbable dream of winning a medal despite competing with a ruptured anterior cruciate ligament.
Vonn was just 13 seconds into her run in bright sunshine in Cortina d’Ampezzo when she lost control, twisted in the air and crumpled in the snow.
The 41-year-old’s cries of pain could be heard on the microphones as medical staff attended to the stricken skier on the piste.
Thousands of spectators at the bottom of the run fell silent as they watched the images of the crash on giant screens.
Vonn was eventually strapped into a stretcher and winched into the air by helicopter to be flown to hospital.
Her US teammate Breezy Johnson went on to win the gold medal, but her first thoughts were for Vonn, saying: “My heart goes out to her. I hope it’s not as bad as it looked.”
Johnson finished in front of Germany’s Emma Aicher by just 0.04sec with Italy’s Sofia Goggia taking bronze in front of her home fans.
Vonn’s sister Karin Kildow, who watched the crash on giant screens at the course, said: “That definitely was the last thing we wanted to see.”
Hopes dashed
Just two weeks ago, Vonn, one of global sport’s most recognizable faces, looked in contention to cap a remarkable comeback from retirement by winning the second Olympic gold medal of her career — her last came 16 years ago in the downhill at the 2010 Vancouver Games.
She had retired in 2019 but returned to the slopes in 2024 after surgery to insert a titanium implant in her right knee to quell persistent pain.
But her Olympic plans were thrown into disarray when she crashed in a World Cup race at Crans Montana, Switzerland, on January 30.
In a press conference once she arrived in Italy, she admitted she had ruptured her ACL in the crash, but insisted she could still compete for medals.
“This is not obviously what I had hoped for.... I know what my chances were before the crash and and I know my chances aren’t the same as it stands today,” she said then.
“But I know there’s still a chance, and as long as there’s a chance I will try.”
She even batted aside those who doubted her ability to perform with such an injury, taking to social media to fire back at a sports doctor for doubting her ACL tear was as bad as she claimed.
In other action on Sunday, the second full day of the Milan-Cortina Games, Czech snowboarder Zuzana Maderova won gold in the women’s parallel giant slalom after the shock exit of defending champion Ester Ledecka.
Ledecka crashed out in the quarter-finals as the Czech chased what would have been a historic snowboarding title in three consecutive Olympics.
Maderova enjoyed a comfortable victory over Ledecka’s conqueror Sabine Payer, cruising to victory by 0.83sec.
In Tesero, Norwegian cross-country skier Johannes Klaebo racked up the sixth Olympic gold medal of his career by taking the skiathlon title.
Later, attention will switch the ice rink as the USA go into the final day of the figure skating team event seeking to resist a stiff challenge from Japan.
Ilia Malinin, the US sensation who was upstaged on his Olympic debut on Saturday by Japan’s Yuma Kagiyama, skates again on Sunday in the free program.
