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“At the minute I feel good – I don’t think about it till you guys ask,” Norris has said.
“Everything is just a bonus,” says Verstappen, who was so far back at the end of August.
“I’m not getting my hopes up,” says Piasrtri. “If I can achieve it, it would be nice,” he adds, in a low-credibility understatement.
Handy, not commanding, is Martin Brundle’s description of Norris’s lead. “It only needs a puncture or an errant backmarker,” Brundle points out.
We are 40 minutes from the start of qualifying.
The silver lining for Norris in Qatar was Kimi Antonelli’s mistake that cost him and Mercedes fourth place and allowed the Briton two extra points. Sky Sport’s Karun Chandhok never hides his enthusiasm for what is going on but while David Croft was trying to call the conclusion of the race in front of him the Indian ex-driver was positively bursting to share the significance of Norris’s unexpected gain: from needing a top-two finish in Abu Dhabi to be sure of the championship, now he needed only third spot. With good reason he is the 1-3 favourite to win the title.
(If you are a Taurine-sceptic and ever need to explain to someone why it’s hard to warm to Red Bull as a whole, then the fallout from that moment is one to have bookmarked. Verstappen’s race engineer, Gianpiero Lambiase, and Red Bull’s motor sport adviser, Helmut Marko, brought down death threats from Oranje-men on the Mercedes driver’s head by immediately claiming the Italian had deliberately helped Norris, an allegation they had to retract in humiliating fashion after the death threats and the denunciation by Antonelli’s team principal, Toto Wolff. The immediate assumption of dirty tricks could be considered something of a tell, while any chances that Christian Horner’s departure would help Red Bull back on to Wolff’s Christmas card list surely went down to zero.)
We are 50 minutes from the start of qualifying.
Past performance is no guarantee of future results, but for what it’s worth, here’s how it went in the practice sessions: pretty well for Norris.
He missed out on a clean sweep, after being fastest in FP1 and FP2, coming in second by 0.004 in FP3 – but it was George Russell in the Mercedes who pipped him, rather than either of his title rivals.
Verstappen was third, 0.124 slower than Russell, and Piastri, +0.259, was pushed down to fifth by Fernando Alonso in the Aston Martin. The 2025 nightmare continued for Lewis Hamilton, who crashed in his Ferrari.
Back to the race. There are all sorts of points permutations possible, if Russell, say, lands the win. But given Piastri needs 1st or 2nd to overtake Norris, it is impossible for all three drivers to wind up on the same total. Abolishing the extra point for fastest lap has spoiled the fun a little.
Norris cannot tie with anyone who has actually won the race, which means the Briton is champion if he finishes 1st equal on points with either Verstappen or Piastri. All three have seven wins, negating the first tie-breaker, but Norris has eight second places to Verstappen’s five and Piastri’s four.
For the record, 1st 25pts, 2nd 18pts, 3rd 15pts, 4th 12pts, 5th 10pts, 6th 8pts, 7th 6pts, 8th 4pts, 9th 2pts, 10th 1pt.
Preamble
It really shouldn’t be like this, if you are McLaren. With clearly the better car across the season, and a better pair of drivers than Red Bull have, McLaren should already have the drivers’ title to go with the constructors’ gong they wrapped up weeks ago. Yet Max Verstappen’s stubborn rejection of second best has enabled Red Bull’s main – and in effect only – man to reach Abu Dhabi with a shot at the title, after successive blunder weekends for McLaren.
First the Las Vegas disqualification, which cost Lando Norris 18 points and Oscar Piastri 12. Then the Qatar misread on pitting during a safety car, which turned a likely win for Piastri into second place and a probable third into a lucky fourth for Norris.
No. More. Mistakes.
That requirement starts in qualifying, where Norris has flirted with disaster on occasion. In Qatar he left it late to get out of Q1 and in qualifying for both sprint race and grand prix he failed to nail his final run. In Baku, Piastri put his car into the wall in Q3 but Norris failed to take advantage and started seventh fastest, managing a slower time than he had in Q1 – a repeat of that initial lap would have been enough for second place on the grid.
But if Norris can get round in good order, at a track where last year he took pole and chequered flag, then he will be on course for the third place that would guarantee him the world title.
Here are the standings:
1. Norris 408pts
2. Verstappen 396pts
3. Piastri 392pts
The 15 points for third place would take Norris to 423, with Verstappen at best on 421. If Piastri were to win the race and reach 417, then Norris would need the 10 points that come from finishing fifth.
Qualifying gets under way at 2pm GMT, 6pm local time.
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