DOHA: Max Verstappen is seeking a hat-trick of wins at the Qatar Grand Prix this weekend as this year’s Formula One world championship reaches boiling point in the Arabian Gulf.
But he will know, better than most, that even with luck on his side he is unlikely to overhaul a 24-point deficit that separates him from McLaren’s Lando Norris as they approach the final two events of the season.
Despite being disqualified along with McLaren team-mate and title rival Oscar Piastri, after finishing second at the Las Vegas Grand Prix last Sunday, Norris arrives in Qatar as favorite to lift his first title and clinch McLaren’s first team-and-driver double since Mika Hakkinen’s success in 1998.
The 26-year-old Briton needs only to hold his nerve and out-score his rivals by two points to leave Qatar as champion on Sunday night.
Of the three, Norris is the only one who has an opportunity to take the crown this weekend.
Having won it four times in a row, Verstappen has the experience and mentality on his side while nerves and apprehension eat at Norris and the seemingly luckless Piastri appears to flounder in search of his recently lost form.
A multitude of scenarios have been thrown up as possibilities, but it is clear that with a substantial cushion Norris has the simplest task and least reason to take risks in Saturday’s sprint race and Sunday’s floodlit Grand Prix.
Verstappen has closed a 104-point gap behind then-leader Piastri since the start of September with a phenomenal surge of form that has left McLaren fans biting their nails and considering the wisdom of the team’s honorable decision to allow their drivers to fight each other.
Winner takes all
Such sporting stances have often brought conflict and disappointment, a fact not lost on team boss Andrea Stella, who has been adamant that McLaren will support both men equally until one is mathematically out of the title race.
“We’re not going to close the door unless it is closed by mathematics,” he said earlier this year, ruling out any ‘team orders’ scenario in support of Piastri or Norris.
He has been involved before himself, having been Kimi Raikkonen’s race engineer at Ferrari in 2007, when the Finn took the title ahead of the warring McLaren pair Fernando Alonso and Lewis Hamilton by overhauling a 17-point gap with two races left.
He was also Alonso’s engineer at Ferrari in 2010 when the two-time champion’s strategy failed at the final race and allowed Sebastian Vettel, 15 points adrift and third at the start, to steal the title for Red Bull.
Piastri therefore should not be ruled out.
Returning to circuits and conditions that may help him, he can yet deliver a performance that lifts him back into serious contention on a fast and flowing circuit where Pirelli have insisted on two pit-stops in the race due to heavy tyre-wear.
Each set of tires will be limited to 25 laps, a cap that is likely to produce thrills and unexpected tactics and put a premium on pit-wall decision-making in the heat of competition.
That could see Mercedes or Ferrari upsetting forecasts and creating unpredictable results that might even mean Norris, Piastri and Verstappen travel to Abu Dhabi for a season-ending showdown where the winner takes all.