Call it the “Max Factor,” as you can never count out Red Bull driver Max Verstappen.

The four-time reigning world champion earned his seventh victory of the season, and second in as many weeks, at the Qatar Grand Prix on Sunday.

It was also Verstappen’s 70th career GP victory and his third straight at the Lusail International Circuit.

Verstappen was a whopping 104 points adrift of points leader McLaren’s Oscar Piastri following his home race at the Dutch Grand Prix on the final day of August.

Now, Verstappen is just 12 back of McLaren’s Lando Norris with one race remaining, and his dream to capture a fifth consecutive title is well within reach. Had Norris finished ahead of Verstappen on Sunday, the “drive for five” would have ended.

Verstappen qualified third on the grid but had the advantage of lining up on the “cleaner” side of the track — even if it meant being right behind pole-sitter Piastri — and was able to swoop by the slow-starting Norris for second place ahead of the first corner on the opening lap.

What happened next was nothing short of an early Festivus miracle for Red Bull and Verstappen.

Contact between Sauber’s Nico Hulkenberg and Alpine’s Pierre Gasly on lap seven brought out the safety car with debris scattered all over the track. While Piastri stayed out, Verstappen peeled into the pits for an early first stop of the night.

McLaren, unwilling to call an audible and appear to favour one driver over the other, had Norris remain out as well to retake second place instead of pitting.

That proved to be a huge mistake as everyone else (minus Haas driver Esteban Ocon and obviously Hulkenberg) all pitted for fresher tires and caught back up behind the McLarens ahead of the restart.

Norris asked race engineering director Will Joseph on the team radio: “We should’ve just followed (Verstappen) in, no? If we knew the car ahead was staying out?”

Joseph replied: “They have lost all their flexibility for the remainder of the race.”

Perhaps McLaren was hoping for another yellow flag or a safety car, neither of which came as the race settled down for there, but it was a colossal fumble that may have just cost one of their drivers the championship.

Instead of a cheap pit stop under the safety car with the field slowed down, both McLaren drivers now had to box with the field at top speed.

While Piastri recovered to take second place, Norris missed out on the podium, finishing fourth behind Williams driver (and good friend) Carlos Sainz.

Even then, it looked like Norris would end up fifth until a late mistake from Kimi Antonelli allowed him to overtake the Mercedes on the final lap. That gave Norris two crucial points that, you never know, might even decide the championship.

As they stand entering Abu Dhabi

The F1 season wraps up next weekend with the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix. Norris could have clinched in Qatar had he finished four points ahead of Piastri and one point over Verstappen, but instead it’ll go down to the wire.

Here’s how the standings look at the moment, with three drivers in the chase for the championship (pending no post-race disqualifications again).

• Norris is still in the lead with 408 points.

• Verstappen’s victory helped him leapfrog Piastri for second place with 396 points (12 back of Norris).

• Piastri drops to third with 392 points (16 back of Norris).

Shall we manifest the nightmare scenario? Should any of them finish level in the standings after Abu Dhabi, the first tiebreaker is most wins on the season, which is even right now between Norris, Verstappen and Piastri at seven apiece. Winner-take-all.

Should none of them win in Abu Dhabi and there’s still a tie in the standings, then the championship would be decided by their draw-to-the-button totals. Wait, wrong sport.

After wins, it would go down the order to second-place finishes. Norris leads that category with eight, followed by Verstappen (five) and Piastri (four).

The 2010 championship featured a four-way battle in Abu Dhabi between Alonso (then with Ferrari), Red Bull’s Mark Webber and Sebastian Vettel, plus Lewis Hamilton (then with McLaren).

Vettel hadn’t led in the standings all year until it was all over as he won the race to claim his first of four consecutive titles. He also became the youngest world champion at the age of 23 years, 134 days.

Flashback to 2007, when Ferrari’s Kimi Raikkonen trailed Hamilton and Alonso (then teammates at McLaren) entering the final race of the season in Brazil. Raikkonen won the race and his first and only championship by a single point over Hamilton and Alonso.

What’s that line about those who fail to learn history are doomed to repeat it?

McLaren’s attempt to please everyone is pleasing no one.

With both drivers mathematically in the hunt for the drivers’ championship, the team is unwilling to favour one over the other — even if it ends up costing them both the title.

The constructors’ championship is what matters to McLaren, and the team breezed to its second straight team title back at the Singapore GP in early October.

It’ll be interesting to see how McLaren’s “Papaya rules” play out in Abu Dhabi.

Piastri crushed it Saturday, winning the sprint and pipping Norris for pole position during qualifying for the GP.

While Verstappen has clawed back since the aforementioned Dutch GP, that remains the most recent time Piastri has won a non-sprint race with just one other podium finish — third place in Monza — to show for it.

The Australian driver’s return to form in Qatar might have come too late, as fate isn’t entirely in his hands. Piastri will need to finish in the top two in Abu Dhabi — and even that might not be enough depending on where Norris and Verstappen end up.

Sainz scored his second podium finish since joining Williams at the start of the season, after he was given the boot from Ferrari to make way for the seven-time world champion Hamilton.

The last time Williams had multiple podium finishes in a single year? That was a decade ago, when Valtteri Bottas and Felipe Massa combined to earn four during the 2015 season.

For the record, Sainz’s two GP podiums are two more than Hamilton has earned with the Scuderia.

No hammer time for Hamilton

It was a double whammy weekend for Hamilton, who failed to make it out of the first stage of qualifying for both the sprint and the GP. Hamilton started the race in lowly 18th and moved up six spots to finish 12th — still outside the top 10 and therefore out of the points.

Hamilton’s Ferrari teammate Charles Leclerc finished eighth, but the Monegasque driver already sounded like a broken man after qualifying 10th.

“Normally, I’m a very optimistic person, but I have to say that this weekend, there’s zero performance in this car,” Leclerc said Saturday, according to formula1.com.

Sounds like someone needs a hug.