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Lando Norris and Oscar Piastri have been disqualified from the 2025 Las Vegas Grand Prix, a huge boost to the title hopes of Max Verstappen, who won the race.
Norris finished the race second and Piastri finished fourth but both were disqualified more than four hours later after their McLarens were found to have excessively worn down the skid planks on the underside of their cars.
Norris was set to lead Piastri in the drivers’ standings by 30 points and Verstappen by 42 points, but instead he leaves Vegas leading each by 24 points.
There are just two races (and a sprint race) left in the 2025 F1 season, which translates to a maximum of 58 points on offer.
Share your reaction with us at live@theathletic.com.
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Lando Norris, Oscar Piastri disqualified from Las Vegas GP, rattling the F1 championship
Here's what the FIA ruling document has to say about the arguments McLaren made in its attempt to avoid disqualification, and about the responses the FIA and the stewards gave to those arguments.
"The team argued that mitigating circumstances existed in that there was additional and unexpected porpoising at this event, limited opportunity to test due to the weather on Thursday, and shortened practice sessions. Further, the team submitted that the degree of the breach was lower than prior breaches of this regulation in 2025.
"The FIA argued that unfortunately there was no provision in the regulations or in precedent for any penalty other than the usual penalty of disqualification. The FIA noted that it strongly held the view that the breach was unintentional and that there was not deliberate attempt to circumvent the regulations.
"The stewards also note the various decisions of the FIA International Court of Appeal which limit the ability to avoid disqualification for technical breaches.
"Notwithstanding the submission by the team that there was potentially accidental damage that may have led to movement of the floor which could have caused additional wear, the stewards do not consider this sufficient to mitigate the penalty."
Kimi Antonelli is promoted to the podium despite finishing the race with a five-second time penalty.
DSQ: Norris, Piastri
DNF: Albon, Bortoleto, Stroll
Here's how the drivers' championship standings look now that both McLaren drivers have been disqualified from tonight's race:
Piastri holds the tiebreaker over Verstappen by virtue of having won seven races this season compared to six for the Red Bull driver.
And here's how the drivers' standings were set to look based on tonight's original results:
Norris' lead over second place only falls from 30 points to 24. Meanwhile, Piastri's lead over Verstappen drops from 12 to zero.
Verstappen is obviously the big winner here, seeing his deficit to Norris decrease from 42 to 24.
The skid plank width required is 9mm. The measurements were 8.88 millimeters on the front right-hand side and 8.93 millimeters on the rear right-hand side on Norris' car. On Piastri's car, it was 8.96 millimeters on the front left-hand side, 8.74 millimeters on the front right-hand side and 8.90 millimeters on the rear right-hand side.
Fine, fine margins – but that's both cars out of the final race classification.
We’ve gotten the ruling from the FIA, and both McLaren drivers have indeed been disqualified from the 2025 Las Vegas Grand Prix for excessive plank wear.
More reader emails are rolling in regarding reaction to the possibility that both McLaren drivers will be disqualified from tonight's race.
Jordan S.: It would be unconscionable for McLaren to NOT receive a double DSQ after Lewis Hamilton received a DSQ for the exact same issue back in China. In that case, the decision came down quickly. Yet in this instance, we’re over two hours post race and it hasn’t come through yet. Why?
Leif J.: This could be HUGE. Max Verstappen might have a chance to win the championship!
Let us know your opinion at live@theathletic.com.
Reader Lucas L. has emailed us to give his reaction to the jeopardy the McLaren drivers are in.
✉️ I'm absolutely bewildered that this may happen to the McLaren boys. As a Red Bull fan, this is very surprising.
What's your take on the threat of disqualification? And on the chaos it would add to the drivers' championship standings? Let us know at live@theathletic.com!
McLaren has told reporters that Andrea Stella will not be speaking to the press after the decision is issued, but will rather be issuing a statement.
Sadly the complexity of F1 means we very rarely get quick, decisive calls from the stewards when it comes to post-race technical checks. We're now at three-and-a-half hours post-race and still no word of an outcome.
When drivers have been disqualified for excessive plank wear in the past, limited running in free practice sessions has been a common theme. Both of the recent examples of this occurring – Lewis Hamilton in China this season, Hamilton and Charles Leclerc in Texas in 2023 – came during sprint weekends, when there's only one practice session instead of the usual three.
That wasn't the case this weekend, but other factors combined to curtail practice running. FP2 was effectively over after 40 minutes due to a pair of red flags over concerns of a loose manhole cover, and running in FP3 was compromised by rain.
The less practice running, the less data teams have to prepare for these kinds of challenges during races.
Another famous example of disqualification due to excessive plank wear came all the way back in 1994, when Michael Schumacher's victory in the Belgian Grand Prix was nullified for this reason. In a season full of controversy, Schumacher was also disqualified from the British Grand Prix and subsequently suspended for two races, but still managed to win the drivers' championship by one point over Damon Hill.
After races, all 20 cars are weighed and undergo inspections for things such as tire pressures, fuel samples, torque control and oil consumption. A number of cars are also randomly selected for additional technical checks, including the plank wear inspection.
That means that at least one of the McLaren cars was randomly selected for that check. Once an issue was found with one McLaren, the other would also be checked for the same issue if it hadn't already been randomly selected.
Had the FIA not checked the planks on Lando Norris and Oscar Piastri's cars, both would have escaped detection and possible disqualification.
Team representatives typically go into hearings with the stewards armed with all the arguments possible to escape sanction.
Oscar Piastri heads into the Nevada night looking sanguine. He said goodbye to the McLaren mechanics breaking from packing down the team’s garage on his way out and left with his manager Mark Webber.
Lando Norris has been gone almost 90 minutes – before it was officially confirmed the McLarens were under investigation.
The plank on the underside of an F1 car is made of a composite material called Jabroc, a kind of strengthened beechwood. Its primary purpose is for safety, stopping the cars from bottoming into the circuit.
The point of the plank wear rule is to ensure teams are not running their cars too close to the ground and consequently gaining a performance benefit by increasing the downforce generated by the floors, which are especially powerful under the current "ground effect" regulations.
After each race, the FIA conducts an extensive scrutineering process that checks various aspects of all cars. The information is detailed in a post-race report issued by the FIA’s technical delegate, Jo Bauer, and sent to all competitors and made available to the media.
Above, you can see an example of the plank down the middle of the underside of a Ferrari in 2019.
If Oscar Piastri and Lando Norris are disqualified from the Las Vegas Grand Prix for excessive plank wear, they won't be the first drivers to face the penalty this season. Lewis Hamilton was disqualified from the Chinese Grand Prix in March due to the thickness of his rear skid block being below the minimum 9mm in thickness.
Hamilton and Charles Leclerc were also both disqualified from the 2023 United States Grand Prix for this reason.
More on the plank wear rule and what happened earlier this year at the link below.
GO FURTHER
Lewis Hamilton, Charles Leclerc and Pierre Gasly disqualified from Chinese Grand Prix
Let me stress that we do not know the outcome of the investigation into the McLaren cars at this time. With that said, here's the drivers' standings based on tonight's provisional results:
And here's how they would look if both McLaren drivers are disqualified from tonight's race:
Norris' lead over second place would only fall from 30 points to 24. Meanwhile, Piastri's lead over Verstappen would drop from 12 to zero.
Verstappen would obviously be the big winner, seeing his deficit to Norris decrease from 42 to 24.
Meanwhile, Gabriel Bortoleto has been handed a five-place grid penalty for next weekend's Qatar Grand Prix for his collision with Lance Stroll at the opening corner tonight, which knocked both drivers out of the race.
Both McLaren cars have officially been referred to the stewards for excessive plank wear.
A document from the FIA states: "The rearmost skid was measured on both cars … The measured thickness was less than 9 mm on both cars, which is the minimum thickness required."
McLaren team principal Andrea Stella's post-race press conference has been delayed, and Lando Norris' car is reportedly still being scrutineered by race officials. If an issue is found, such as not enough fuel left to comprise a sample or excessive plank wear, that could result in a disqualification for Norris, which would reduce his lead over Oscar Piastri in the drivers' standings from 30 points all the way down to nine. But that's only speculation at this time. Norris was clearly conserving fuel at the end of the race, so it would follow that he was on the limit in that regard, but that doesn't guarantee an infraction occurred. In short, watch this space!

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Somebody should check with SoFi Stadium to see if it rescinded its offer.
In what could have been UCLA’s last game at the Rose Bowl after 43 years of calling the place home, the Bruins unfurled the kind of showing that no one would ever want to relive or put in a scrapbook, much less market as part of a future plan.
If this was goodbye, it was a sad sendoff.
There were lost fumbles, a laughably bad fake field goal that resulted in a touchdown for the other team and a dropped pass that probably cost UCLA its own score. And that was just in the first half.
Adding injury to insult, UCLA quarterback Nico Iamaleava took a crunching hit that sidelined him late in the third quarter, ending his gritty return from a concussion that had forced him to miss his team’s last game.
There’s mercifully only one game left for the Bruins this season after a 48-14 loss to Washington on Saturday night led to a fast-emptying stadium, no fond farewells in store for the home fans amid an announced crowd of 38,201 that was too depleted by game’s end to boo.
The site of UCLA’s next home game remains as big of an unknown as its next head coach. School officials have said they are still contemplating plans for where the team will play in the future, though that decision could be up to a court to decide given the Bruins have nearly two decades left on a Rose Bowl lease that doesn’t expire until the summer of 2044.
It’s believed that if school officials have their way, they will move to SoFi Stadium in time for their 2026 season opener. UCLA defensive back Cole Martin, a native of Pasadena, did not seem happy about the possibility of abandoning the Rose Bowl as his home stadium.
“The Rose Bowl means a lot to me,” said Martin, whose interception in the second quarter was one of only a handful of big plays for the Bruins. “It makes me emotional thinking about it. It’s everything to me, for sure.”
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UCLA fans tailgating before what might be the Bruins’ final game at the Rose Bowl lament the loss of a tradition if the school moves its football games to SoFi Stadium.
Wherever the Bruins play next season, they have a lot of improvements to make. They looked lethargic in falling behind 34-0 on Saturday while making one mistake after another on the way to a fourth consecutive defeat.
“We just couldn’t stop the bleeding, you know?” UCLA interim coach Tim Skipper said.
By the time he entered the game, there was little backup quarterback Luke Duncan could do except make the final score slightly more palatable. He succeeded on that front, firing a 37-yard touchdown pass to Mikey Matthews late in the third quarter that helped UCLA (3-8 overall, 3-5 Big Ten) avoid a shutout.
There was another highlight for the Bruins early in the fourth quarter when Kanye Clark forced a fumble on Washington’s punt return, allowing Jamir Benjamin to pick up the ball and run 13 yards for a touchdown.
But make no mistake: This was complete domination by the Huskies (8-3, 5-3), who rolled up 426 yards of offense while holding the Bruins to 207 yards, including just 57 yards rushing.
Washington alumnus and comedian Joel McHale performed a short recorded bit that was shown on the scoreboard before the game, but the real slapstick was about to come.
The Bruins coughed up two fumbles in the first half and would have lost a third had the Huskies not been called for defensive holding on the play, nullifying the turnover.
“Turnovers are always going to kill you,” Skipper said, “so we’ve got to find a way to fix that as we get into next week.”
UCLA wide receiver Titus Mokiao-Atimalala dropped what could have been a touchdown pass at the Huskies’ 38-yard line with nothing but open field in front of him.
But there was no blunder quite like what happened when the Bruins lined up for a 46-yard field goal late in the second quarter. Holder Cash Peterman took the snap and flipped the ball over his shoulder as kicker Mateen Bhaghani circled behind him, the ball hitting the turf instead of Bhaghani’s hands.
Washington’s Alex McLaughlin picked up the ball and ran 59 yards for a touchdown that put the Huskies ahead, 20-0.
Skipper said the Huskies showed one look in their field-goal defense before shifting out of it prior to the snap, causing chaos for the Bruins.
“The communication on our end got all jacked up when they stemmed out of it,” Skipper said, “so I’ll take the heat for it — it was probably too complicated, it was too much communication and we miscommunicated and that’s what happened.”
Things never got appreciably better, the Bruins left adrift without a haven in sight.
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Ben Bolch has been a Los Angeles Times staff writer since 1999. Twice awarded top-10 finishes in feature writing by the Associated Press Sports Editors, he began his second stint as the UCLA beat writer in 2016. His first stint, during the 2010-11 season, ended with yet another crushing loss to Florida in the NCAA tournament. Over his 25 years at The Times, Bolch has also covered the Lakers, Clippers, Dodgers, Angels, USC men’s basketball and high schools. His favorite athletes to cover were Dave Roberts, Jamal Crawford, Jose Lima, David Eckstein, Luc Richard Mbah a Moute, Thomas Welsh, Josh Kelley and Aday Mara. Bolch is also the author of the book “100 Things UCLA Fans Should Know & Do Before They Die.”
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