LAS VEGAS — Lando Norris and Oscar Piastri were awarded the win in the Las Vegas Grand Prix after race winner Max Verstappen was excluded from the results, Sunday, Nov. 23, 2025, for excessive plank wear. Read Also:Norris and Piastri have “no doubts” about the legality of McLaren cars. Verstappen continued to lead the second phase of F1’s 2025 engine war. Norris had aimed for a perfect …
After the race, a post-race scrutineering of both MCL60s found that their skid blocks had sunk to beneath the 9 mm minimum thickness as prescribed by Article 3.5.9 of the technical regulations, with disqualification an automatic consequence once this non-compliance was confirmed. The official report from Formula One, published recently on the FIA’s website, stated that although McLaren claimed the wear was a by-product of bouncing and set-up rather than any intent to burn fuel, “intent is immaterial with respect to liability under Article 30.12”.
How McLaren disqualified Las Vegas blew the F1 title race wide open
Prior to the stewards’ decision, Norris finished second and Piastri fourth, and that would have increased his title cushion and kept Piastri just in front of Verstappen. Instead, both McLaren pilots saw all their Vegas points disappear, Norris on 390 while Verstappen and Piastri drew level on 366, only to still be 24 shy with two rounds remaining in Qatar and Abu Dhabi.
Las Vegas victory for Verstappen — his 69th win and eighth straight podium in total — suddenly leaves a fifth consecutive title on the cards after spending this season firmly on the back foot against McLaren’s growing pair. Now the “McLaren disqualified Las Vegas” weekend will long be remembered after a controlled title defense by Norris turned into an arm wrestle involving three drivers.
McLaren team principal Andrea Stella apologized to the drivers and fans and promised that there would be ‘a full investigation’ into why simulations, together with ride-height models, had failed to highlight the risk at a freshly resurfaced street circuit — citing unexpected porpoising up and down over bumps and ‘the fact that dry practice running is limited’. His comments were included in a detailed report from The Race.
What the FIA plank rule does – and why it keeps biting big names
The “skid block,” which is commonly referred to as the “plank,” is a resin-coated strip that is bolted under each car. It serves as a cop on ride height: running lower can be better for performance, but makes it more likely to grind the plank away over bumps. According to FIA rules, the plank is about 10 mm thick when new, and it cannot wear to less than 9 millimeters at any of a number of inspection holes, or the car is out of compliance and must be disqualified. A recent deep dive from Motorsport. com: McLaren’s aggressive low-rake set-up over Las Vegas’s long straights and rough bumps took it beyond that limit.
This is not the first time small increments in plank wear have determined great races. Lewis Hamilton and Charles Leclerc, at the 2023 United States Grand Prix in Austin, were disqualified from second and sixth places, respectively, for the same transgressions as F1. com analysis of their disqualifications.
Earlier this year, in Shanghai, Hamilton — now with Ferrari — lost a podium when his car once again failed the same thickness check, another case unpacked at length by a detailed Forbes explainer on skid blocks and disqualifications. The pattern has been the same: tiny violations of the plank rule can yield seismic shifts in the standings.
For Norris and Piastri, “McLaren disqualified Las Vegas” will endure as the weekend that transformed a McLaren-led title attack into a knife-edge finale. There’s a sprint weekend in Qatar, then a double-points haul still up for grabs in Abu Dhabi: There is space to recover — but Verstappen has the momentum now, and McLaren simply cannot afford another misplaced screw.
