By Andrew Benson, F1 correspondence in Las Vegas.
Lando Norris and McLaren team-mate Oscar Piastri have been disqualified from the Las Vegas Grand Prix for technical infringements.
The skid blocks on both cars were found after the race to be less than the minimum depth.
Norris, who finished second to Red Bull’s Max Verstappen, is now 24 points ahead of both the Dutchman and Piastri going into the penultimate race of the season in Qatar next weekend.
The Briton will still win the title in Qatar if he earns two more points than both Verstappen and Piastri over the course of the weekend.
There are a maximum of 58 points available in the final two grands prix with Qatar being a sprint event.
After Qatar, the final race follows in Abu Dhabi on 7 December.
The skid block is mandated in the regulations to prevent the cars from running too low.
The lower an F1 car runs, the quicker it will generally be.
The same fate befell Ferrari’s Lewis Hamilton after the Chinese Grand Prix in March.
Hamilton was also disqualified from the 2023 US Grand Prix for the same reason when he was at Mercedes, along with Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc. And Mercedes’s George Russell lost a win in Belgium last season for the same technical infringement.