McLaren boss Andrea Stella has issued a statement following the shock disqualifications of Lando Norris and Oscar Piastri from the Las Vegas Grand Prix.
Norris finished second and Piastri fourth in Sin City, but both cars were expunged from the results for too much plank wear - a slam-dunk breach of F1's technical regulations.
Norris's title lead over Piastri had grown to 30 points, with Max Verstappen 39 points behind following his victory, but the Dutchman is now tied with Piastri, 24 points behind Norris.
The Briton has 390 points to Piastri's 366 and Verstappen's 366, with the Red Bull driver only behind Piastri on countback by dint of seven wins for the Australian to Verstappen's six.
Following the double disqualification, the first time it has ever happened to both McLaren cars in a grand prix, team principal Stella issued the following statement.
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Andrea Stella statement on double McLaren disqualification
"Following the Las Vegas Grand Prix, we were found in breach of Article 3.5.9 of the Technical Regulations, which requires a minimum of 9mm skid thickness.
"Car 4 was found in breach by a maximum of 0.12mm of the rearmost skid and Car 81 by a maximum of 0.26mm of the rearmost skid.
"During the race, both cars experienced unexpected, high levels of porpoising not seen in the Practice sessions, which led to excessive contact with the ground. We are investigating the reasons for this behaviour of the car, including the effect of accidental damage sustained by both cars, which we found after the race, and that led to an increase of movement of the floor.
"As the FIA noted, the breach was unintentional, there was no deliberate attempt to circumvent the regulations, and mitigating circumstances also existed.
"We apologise to Lando and Oscar for the loss of points today, at a critical time in their Championship campaigns after two strong performances from them all weekend. As a team, we also apologise to our partners and fans, whose support means so much.
"While this outcome is extremely disappointing, we remain fully focused on the last two races of the season."
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