On the formation lap, due to the low temperatures drivers were advised to do as many as five brunouts before taking their spot on the grid, to ensure maximum chances of a good launch at lights out.

Norris, however, only did three. Apparently he was more focused on what title rival Verstappen was doing, which triggered an angry response from the McLaren driver who accused the Red Bull driver of hanging back.

“Yeah, he’s taking the p*ss with how big of a gap he’s leaving. It’s way over the allowed allowance,” Norris said to race engineer Will Joseph.

“Yeah. Come on! He’s just taking the p*ss here. You can’t do this. It’s 10 car lengths, no?” However, the car length rules is in place for driving under Safety Car conditions. When on the formation lap drivers are urged to do their best to keep a tight field.

Norris would go on to have a poor start, go off at Turn 1 after chopping across Verstappen, relinquishing the race lead and P2 to the Dutchman and George Russell.

As early as lap 5 Norris was suggested to have "slightly more lift, Turn 6, Turn 11," meaning to lift his foot off the throttle going into those corners even more.

However, this is usually carried out by teams to mitigate fuel consumption and brake wear. Lifting down the straights is a tell-tale sign teams fear the skids may become too worn, since it's on the straights when the floors of the cars grind against the tarmac.

The requests kept coming up throughout the races in Vegas, but with intent to manage tyres more than anything else.

On lap 33 Norris was told to overtake Russell. To which he replied: "You want me DRS or overtake?"

When told he should go for the overtake, he was also informed they were going to "go get Max" next.

After the move for P2 was completed on the 34th tour, Joseph congratuladed Norris and reasserted the prior message saying: "Let's go get Max."

Two laps later, Norris, having posted a lap 7 tenths slower than Verstappen questioned his engineer's previous messages. "What do you mean get Max? We’re just slow."

When Norris completed the overtake on Russell for the runner up position, Verstappen's engineer Gianpiero Lambiase reported the McLaren pit wall's instructions to his driver: "For info Max, Lando has been told to come and get you, and he is saving turns 17, 5, 11. For reference the gap is 5.1."

The message pushed the Red Bull driver to uphis pace, but the surge wasn't as drastic as it has been interpreted. Norris was able to lap quicker than Verstappen, even if the Dutchman at one point increased the gap by seven tenths in a single lap.

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