Lando Norris expects it will be difficult to continue his winning run at the next round in Las Vegas.

The championship leader finished a distant sixth in last year’s race and crashed out of the first edition in 2023. He said the team has been concentrating on how to improve its pace at the unusual, high-speed track.

“I think it was our worst race last year,” said Norris. “So I’m not really looking forward to it.

“We’ve been trying to work quite hard on improving those things. We know Mercedes were incredibly strong there last year, as well as Red Bull and Ferrari. I think we were the bottom of those four.”

He expects the following two rounds will suit McLaren’s car better. “Obviously we’ve improved a lot of things this year, so I’m not going to be too negative about it. I think there’s plenty to look forward to.

“We know Abu Dhabi and Qatar are ones we are looking forward to. Las Vegas just a little bit less, because they’ve been probably some of our weakest races over the last two years. So let’s wait and see.”

Norris scored McLaren’s 14th grand prix victory of the year last weekend. Challenged over whether he was being too pessimistic about his chances at the Las Vegas Strip Circuit, Norris said: “I always try and be as honest as I can be: if I don’t think we’re going to be quick, I don’t think we’re going to be quick.”

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“I’m not saying I’m going to be 10th,” he continued, “I’m just saying I think it’s going to be difficult to win. We were a long way off. Just go and look at the data from last year, look at the race traces, we were miles off.”

Following his emphatic victory in Mexico, Norris’s winning margin in Brazil was much narrower. “I won last weekend by 30 seconds – like, very, very easy,” he said. “I won today by pushing a lot more, only 10 seconds, and Max [Verstappen] was probably the quickest out on track today.”

However McLaren have “never been good at” Las Vegas, he said. “We were very good here two years ago, we almost challenged Max for the win [but] we’ve never been good in Vegas. So why am I going to think, ‘Yeah, it’s going to be fine’?

“I’m giving my honest opinion on how I think we’re going to be. We’ve never been good there, so I’m not the most confident about going into that race.”

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2025 Brazilian Grand Prix

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