Lando Norris and Oscar Piastri disqualified from F1 Las Vegas Grand Prix
Lando Norris and Oscar Piastri are both facing disqualification from the Las Vegas Grand Prix after their McLaren cars failed post-race technical checks, with Max Verstappen to benefit
Lando Norris and Oscar Piastri have been disqualification from the Las Vegas Grand Prix due to a technical violation. Both McLaren cars failed post-race technical inspections after the night race in Sin City, leading to Norris and Piastri being called before the stewards.
FIA scrutineers discovered that the thickness of the planks beneath the McLaren cars was less than 9mm, which is the required minimum by the end of a race. That implied that the cars were operating with an illegally low ride height and led to them both being disqualified from the final classification.
It is a huge moment in the drivers’ title race after Max Verstappen won the Las Vegas race. Because Norris and Piastri were stripped of their results, that victory puts the Dutchman level on points with the Aussie and 24 behind championship leader Norris, with two rounds remaining.
Both McLaren drivers were summoned to the stewards for a hearing which began at 7.45am UK time. The hearing went on for more than an hour and the outcome was finally confirmed close to 2am local time, more than four hours after the conclusion of the Grand Prix.
Norris had finished the race second, having started on pole but lost out to Verstappen at the first corner. The Brit tried an aggressive defence against his Red Bull rival but ended up overshooting the corner as a result, which dropped him behind both Verstappen and George Russell into third place.
He made light work of getting back ahead of the Mercedes but catching Verstappen proved impossible. Regardless, Norris thought he had increased the points gap between himself and team-mate Piastri in the championship heading into the final two rounds of the year, but now faces having to fend off both the other McLaren and the Red Bull of Verstappen over the next couple of weekends.
Before learning of his disqualification, Norris had already been “pretty disappointed” with his performance in the race. He said: “We just weren’t quick enough, we didn’t have the pace. I messed up turn one, it was pretty pretty poor for me. I just braked too late, it was all on me. Pretty poor for myself, but even if I came out in P1 out of turn one, we were just not quick enough.
“Max has done a very good job and the Red Bull is very quick, so they deserve the win today. They were another league compared to us. A bit of a shame that we we didn’t have more pace – we’ve got to try to improve even more. I’m just pretty disappointed with today. I look forward to getting somewhere warm and to go play some golf, go play some padel for a few days, enjoy a few days off and then do everything we can to try to win in Qatar.”
