McLaren’s Vegas Disaster: Double Disqualification Turns F1 Title Race Upside Down
A late-night FIA ruling strips Norris and Piastri of crucial points and suddenly revives Max Verstappen’s championship hopes.
Trenton, November 23 EST: You could feel the air get knocked out of the McLaren garage on Sunday night, the kind of slow-forming tension that spreads when engineers stop talking and mechanics suddenly find reasons to look busy. The 2025 Las Vegas Grand Prix had started out like a statement race for the team. Max Verstappen won under the lights, sure, but Lando Norris brought his car home second and Oscar Piastri grabbed fourth. Solid points, no drama. At least that’s how it looked.
According to Reuters, Verstappen’s win came without much fuss, Norris shadowing him for most of the night while Piastri dug through the midfield. McLaren left the podium ceremony smiling. The problems surfaced only once the FIA began poking around under the cars.
That’s when things turned.
A Rulebook Violation With Brutal Timing
Shortly after the race, as reported by The National, stewards flagged both McLaren entries for excessive skid plank wear. It’s a small piece of wood bolted to the bottom of the chassis, meant to ensure cars run at a legal ride height. Teams flirt with the limit all the time, shaving down to fractions of millimeters, but the plank can’t drop below a certain thickness. Both McLarens did.
And that was that.
The FIA doesn’t do half-penalties with the plank. Either the car is legal or it isn’t. There’s no back-and-forth. No warning. According to Al Jazeera, the ruling came down quickly: Norris and Piastri were disqualified from the results.
Inside the paddock, you could sense the surprise. Not outrage, really, just a sort of disbelief that a team this sharp, this prepared, had slipped on something so basic and so visible. McLaren later pointed to unexpected porpoising and a chaotic practice schedule due to Las Vegas’ choppy weather. The track never really rubbered in, and conditions stayed unpredictable all weekend. The Independent echoed that explanation, noting how the wear exceeded what the team had modeled.
Verstappen’s Title Hopes Snap Back Into Focus
The disqualification didn’t just shuffle the Las Vegas finishing order. It blew the championship wide open.
Per AP News, Verstappen’s shot at a fifth straight crown suddenly looked a lot more alive. The Dutchman walked away from Nevada with a win and a gift: two McLarens losing their points. It didn’t erase his season’s struggles, but it gave him the kind of window drivers at his level rarely waste.
The numbers shifted fast. Based on data attributed to Autocar India, Verstappen now sits even with Piastri on 366 points, with Norris holding 390. Two races left. Fifty-eight points on the table. A title fight that had been drifting toward a McLaren-only duel was, in a single ruling, re-shaped into something far messier and far more compelling.
Even people who don’t pay close attention to F1 standings could feel the mood swing. These late-season point swings carry a weird energy. They rattle teams. They wake up rivals. And for Verstappen, it felt like someone had handed him a fresh set of chances after weeks of watching McLaren stretch away.
McLaren Tries To Steady Itself After A Public Blow
Not long after the ruling, Andrea Stella stepped out and did what team principals do when the world is staring at them. According to the Formula 1 official site, he apologized to the drivers and to the fans. No dodging. No hint of protest. Just a candid acceptance that the team had misjudged the setup and paid the price.
It landed heavily because McLaren has been the class of the field this year. Snapping a skid plank is not something big teams expect to see on their job sheets. And the timing could not have been worse.
For Oscar Piastri, who had driven one of his cleaner races of the season, the disappointment creeped into his tone. He told reporters, as cited by The Independent, that all he could do now was prepare himself for the last two rounds. You could sense he was trying to turn the page, but these kinds of rulings linger. Drivers feel penalties like this more than they admit. Losing points they earned on track is a different kind of frustration.
Fans, Media, And Everyone Watching Had The Same Reaction: Shock
The public response was immediate and loud. RacingNews365 called the ruling a “bombshell,” and the word stuck. Commentators replayed the moment a dozen times, all reaching the same conclusion: the championship had been yanked in a new direction.
Fans flooded social platforms with two competing emotions. Some blasted McLaren for losing focus at the worst possible moment. Others, maybe the more neutral crowd, were thrilled to see the season thrown into chaos again. Plenty of people simply like seeing a fight go down to the wire, and the Vegas ruling almost guarantees it.
Bookmakers didn’t wait, either. The Independent reported that Verstappen’s odds tightened quickly, reflecting a swing in confidence that he could still claw back a title that was beginning to slide out of reach.
Two Races. Three Drivers. Everything To Play For.
Now the circus heads to Qatar, and the teams won’t have much time to sit with what just happened. That might be a blessing for McLaren. It’s easier to move on when the next race arrives in five days.
Qatar’s long straights and violent cornering loads will demand precision in setup. Every detail matters. Every millimeter matters. And after what happened here, nobody at McLaren will be taking ride height tools lightly.
Abu Dhabi follows a week later. A season finale with three drivers mathematically alive is the kind of storyline the sport rarely gets.
Verstappen has momentum again. Norris still holds the lead. Piastri is close enough to make noise. And McLaren, once looking like a team cruising toward a coronation, suddenly finds itself trying to contain a fire of its own making.
Sometimes the championship swings on a late-race pass. Sometimes it swings on a mechanical failure. And sometimes, as Las Vegas reminded everyone, it swings on a sheet of wood screwed to the bottom of the car.
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A former college-level cricketer and lifelong sports enthusiast, Arun Upadhayay brings the heart of an athlete to the sharp eye of a journalist. With firsthand experience in competitive sports and a deep understanding of team dynamics, Arun covers everything from grassroots tournaments to high-stakes international showdowns. His reporting blends field-level grit with analytical precision, making him a trusted voice for sports fans across New Jersey and beyond.
