McLaren’s night in Las Vegas turned into a disaster when both cars were disqualified after the race. The problem was that the wooden plank under each car had worn down too much because the team had been running the cars too low to the ground to get extra speed.
During the race, the team never once mentioned the plank on the radio. Instead, they kept telling Lando Norris and Oscar Piastri to “lift and coast” into certain corners, saying it was to save fuel. On lap 42, Norris asked what he should do while chasing Verstappen, and his engineer just said, “Do more.” A few laps later Norris suddenly slowed down a lot, and right at the end the team said, “The fuel looks OK now.” That didn’t add up.
Experts noticed something strange: Piastri’s plank was actually worn more than Norris’s, yet he got far fewer instructions to lift and coast. Some people think the team knew the planks were at risk as early as the warm-up laps and used the “fuel saving” excuse on purpose so rival teams wouldn’t suspect a plank problem and ask the FIA to check them.
There’s also talk that both cars were already close to the limit in Brazil a few weeks earlier, and Norris said something on the radio there that now sounds like the team was asking him to choose between pushing hard and protecting the plank.
In the end, McLaren lost a one-two finish, handed the win to Verstappen, and now faces a lot of questions. The radio messages look like the team was trying to hide the real issue until it was too late.
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