Ahead of the 2025 F1 Qatar GP, McLaren Racing’s Lando Norris looks to move on from the costly setback at last weekend’s Las Vegas GP, where both McLarens were disqualified. The Briton delivered a storming performance in a wet Qualifying session to secure pole. However, on Sunday, he’d lost the lead heading into Turn 1 and ultimately crossed the line to finish 2nd. After both cars were found to be below the minimum plank thickness, Norris and teammate Oscar Piastri were stripped off their valuable points — a major blow as the title fight intensifies heading into this weekend.
As the Qatar GP marks the penultimate weekend of the 2025 season, Norris has a real opportunity to claim his first Drivers’ Championship. To seal the title, the 26 year-old heads into the final sprint weekend of the season needing to only outscore Piastri and Max Verstappen by two points. During his Thursday print-media session, Norris addressed the issue and the factors that led to the disqualification.
Disqualification didn’t come as a shock to Norris and McLaren
At a circuit where McLaren has historically struggled, a 2nd place finish at the 2025 F1 Las Vegas GP would’ve marked a significant breakthrough — both in terms of their performance there and in Norris’ championship pursuit. He’d admitted the disqualification didn’t come as a surprise, saying the team had already anticipated the possibility. Norris explained: “Yeah, honestly it wasn’t, I mean there was some small expectation of it already, so it wasn’t like it was a complete shock or out of nowhere.
“So I think we were quite prepared for what the result could be, but I actually was quite fine, you know I left the track, we did our debrief, we talked about what was good, what was not good, things we could improve, things that need to be better for here, of course one main thing. But other than that we treated everything very normal.”
Although Norris leads the Drivers’ Standings with 390 points, the disqualification was understandably frustrating. Even so, the Briton didn’t dwell on the disqualification as his focus shifts to the upcoming weekend.
“Of course it hurts, there’s a lot of effort that goes into every weekend from everyone, including myself, and it certainly made all that effort just feel like it disappeared very quickly. But it’s the same feeling for all of us, the mechanics, the engineers, myself, everyone in McLaren feels let down by what we had as a result, and we’re all disappointed.
“But, I found it quite easy just to move on and have a few days off and come to this weekend, so yeah, disappointed of course, but I was fine otherwise.”
“It’s not as simple as just lifting more” – Norris on the complexities behind managing plank wear
Given the complexity of the situation, Norris explained that resolving the plank wear issue would have taken far more than “just lifting”.
He said: “No, it’s certainly not that simple. I think, like Andrea [Stella] mentioned in the Q&A there’s a lot more detail of all these things, it’s not as simple as just lifting more and it just being better, especially because the issue was the porpoising, it wasn’t because we were just running low.
“Sometimes it can be the opposite. So yeah, there was an issue, like sometimes you lift more, you get more porpoising and it’s actually a worse effect.”
He clarified that although he’d experimented with lifting a bit more when he’d a comfortable gap, the difference were extremely minimal. Norris stressed that lifting earlier in the race wouldn’t have mattered, as he’d already been managing the issue throughout the race.
“So yeah, no I just, there was a big gap behind and I tried a bit more, but we’re talking small things, but small things at times that can also add up to a bigger amount. It’s the rules, it’s the way it is. No I don’t think starting any earlier with the, I was lifting the whole race, so starting any earlier would not have made a difference.”
