There are only two rounds left in this year’s Formula 1 season. While it seemed inevitable over the summer that one of McLaren’s drivers would win the World Drivers’ Championship, Max Verstappen is still in mathematical contention. Red Bull’s defending champion stayed in the picture by winning four of the last seven races, but his chances significantly improved after McLaren was disqualified from last weekend’s Las Vegas Grand Prix. The team’s cars were tossed from the result for excessive plank wear.
As it stands, Lando Norris currently leads the championship by 24 points over his McLaren teammate Oscar Piastri and Max Verstappen, who are tied for second. The British driver’s path to clinching his first championship is simple at face value. There are 58 points available, and that figure will drop to 25 after this weekend’s Qatar Grand Prix. Norris must outscore his title rivals by two points to prevent the title fight from continuing to the finale in Abu Dhabi.
This Sunday, Verstappen needs to finish ahead of Norris if McLaren’s points leader crosses the finish line in ninth place or higher. However, the on-track permutations get a bit more complicated when you factor in that Qatar will feature the season’s final sprint race with eight points on offer for the winner. It’s why there are 58 points left on the table, not 50. Norris wouldn’t be able to seal the deal on Saturday, but he could make his job much easier on Sunday.
How McLaren stumbled near the finish line
When F1 returned from its summer break, Verstappen was arguably a footnote in the championship discussion. The Red Bull driver trailed the then-points leader Piastri by 104 points after the Dutch Grand Prix in late August. The fact that we now have a different McLaren driver in the lead hints at what happened. There was an intrateam controversy in the following race, the Italian Grand Prix. As the McLaren drivers fruitlessly attempted to chase down Verstappen, Norris suffered a slow pit stop and rejoined the track behind Piastri. The team ordered Piastri to let his teammate through into second place.
Piastri was frustrated by the situation, and he admitted it played a role in his disastrous Azerbaijan Grand Prix. He crashed out during qualifying’s third session, put his car ninth on the grid. Then, the Australian jumped the start, triggered his McLaren’s anti-stall system and fell to last place. Rounding things out, he crashed out on the opening lap. Verstappen won again. The Australian hasn’t stood on the podium since.
McLaren has largely righted the ship as a team, barring the Las Vegas Grand Prix disqualification. According to F1, the planks on both Norris’ and Piastri’s cars were found to be below the allowed nine-millimeter thickness during the post-race inspection. The planks are mounted 10 millimeters thick, so a significant chunk has been worn away before crossing the limit. This infraction is almost always a disqualification. The floor-mounted boards are intended to prevent the team from running their cars dangerously low to the ground. We’ll just have to wait and see how things play out over the next two weeks to see how costly McLaren’s miscalculation will be.
