Lando Norris data provides new evidence after late-race Las Vegas GP crisis

After overtaking George Russell on lap 34, it appeared that Lando Norris had secured a comfortable second place in Las Vegas – until the final five laps of the race.

Due to an unknown issue, the championship leader suddenly lost a huge amount of time, putting his position under serious threat. Let’s use telemetry data to uncover what really happened.

Lando Norris in Las Vegas GP battle against time

After losing two positions to Max Verstappen and Russell in Turn 1 due to his own mistake, Norris managed to recover brilliantly over the remainder of the race through strong pace and good strategy.

By extending his first stint a few laps longer than Russell, thus giving himself fresher tyres, he overtook the Mercedes with ease on the long back straight on lap 34. We even heard his race engineer on the radio suggesting that Norris might have a chance to fight for the win.

At that moment, Verstappen’s lead was just over five seconds.

However, it quickly became clear that the gap ahead was too much for Norris to chase. Verstappen comfortably maintained his advantage, and P2 seemed guaranteed for the McLaren driver – right up until lap 45, when something peculiar began to happen.

Norris’ race pace suddenly started to fall. Two laps later, he was almost four seconds per lap slower than Verstappen – a massive drop-off. Russell was just 11 seconds behind at the moment when Norris’ pace collapsed.

What became obvious was that the Briton was dealing with some kind of mechanical issue. The only clue we received through team radio was that it was related to a fuel problem.

The message Norris received, shortly after dropping four seconds per lap, was that “fuel looks okay now.” Unfortunately, no other useful explanation was provided.

Looking at the telemetry, we can clearly see Norris lifting off the throttle on the straights during his final laps. If a driver is trying to save tyres, that usually happens just before the braking point – but in this case, Norris was lifting midway down the straight.

On the long straight between Turns 13 and 14, he lifted multiple times, as shown in the data below. Another significant section is Turn 10, where the difference in apex speed is even more dramatic. In the graph, the white line shows Norris’ speed on lap 45, while the orange line represents lap 48.

So what kind of fuel problem could this have been?

Based on all available data, there is only one realistic explanation: Norris was fuel critical.

This means McLaren miscalculated the required fuel load for the race, forcing Norris to save significant amounts of fuel in order to ensure the car remained legal after the chequered flag.

By regulation, every driver must have a mandatory sample of fuel remaining in the tank at the end of the race for FIA testing, to verify that the fuel used is legal.

By lifting off the throttle on the straights and in fast corners, Norris drastically reduced fuel consumption to reach the required minimum.

The next obvious question is: how can an F1 team miscalculate something as fundamental as fuel load? And the truth is that the situation is more complex than it initially appears.

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Teams aim to avoid overfilling the car, as unnecessary fuel only adds weight and slows lap time. Therefore, they build several models and calculations to determine the most optimal starting amount.

During these calculations there are several variables that can change over the course of a race. For example, the track may turn out to be faster than the team initially expected, which increases fuel consumption. Traffic can also alter the picture – running in clean air uses significantly more fuel compared to following another car or being within DRS range.

Tyre degradation, which was a major unknown ahead of the Las Vegas Grand Prix, almost certainly played its part in Lando’s situation as well.

However, the real issue in this scenario is how the McLaren team failed to spot the problem earlier. Reducing the race pace by just a few per cent over a longer portion of the race would have been a far safer way to save fuel than the drastic drop of four seconds per lap in the final few laps.

Whether McLaren were aware of the issue sooner, and how exactly the miscalculation occurred, is something we simply cannot know.

What ultimately kept Norris in second place was the sizable gap he had built over Russell beforehand. The Mercedes driver, on older tyres, was significantly slower than both Norris and Verstappen in the final third of the race.

In the end, Norris was fortunate to finish 2.8 seconds ahead of Russell – just enough to keep his position safe. Had George been given even one more lap, he would almost certainly have taken P2 back.

Unfortunately for Norris, given the disqualification of both McLaren drivers from the Las Vegas race, Russell still managed to reach P2, albeit in a way I believe nobody wanted.

The reason for the disqualification was excessive plank wear on the floor of the car, which brings us to the final result where Mercedes once again achieved a double podium this season, further strengthening their hold on second place in the Constructors’ Championship.

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