he told F1\u2019s Beyond the Grid podcast<\/a>. \u201cI\u2019d rather go, \u2018We did the best we can and our drivers tied on points and the other guy beat us by one\u2019 than the alternative, which is telling one of our drivers right now, when they\u2019re one point away from each other [after the Mexico City Grand Prix], \u2018I know you have a dream to win the world championship, but we flipped a coin and you don\u2019t get to do it this year\u2019.<\/p>\n\u201cForget it. That\u2019s not how we go racing.<\/p>\n
\u201cIn the event 2007 happens again, I\u2019d rather have that outcome than all the other outcomes by playing favourites.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe won\u2019t do it. We\u2019re racers. We\u2019re going racing.\u201d<\/p>\n
Explaining the McLaren disqualification | 04:57<\/p>\n
HOW CLOSE IS IT?<\/p>\n
Brown had espoused a no-team-orders position all season, and the team has lived that through its so-called papaya rules \u2014 the sometimes controversial team philosophy that\u2019s attempted to keep the fight fair between through occasional intervention.<\/p>\n
But it was an undoubtedly easier position to hold, say, in the first half of the year, when the odds of Verstappen being in contention this late in the year seemed remote.<\/p>\n
Even when Brown spoke to Beyond the Grid, after the Mexico City Grand Prix, Verstappen seemed unlikely to get this far. Norris had just taken scored a comprehensive victory from pole in Mexico City while Verstappen qualified fifth and finished third, suggesting McLaren was back on top in the pecking order.<\/p>\n
The double disqualification, however, has reinserted some jeopardy into the situation and sharpened the parallels with 2007.<\/p>\n
Verstappen\u2019s charge started with an upgrade at the Italian Grand Prix, and since then he\u2019s been almost a match for Norris and Piastri combined.<\/p>\n
Drivers championship, rounds 16 to 22<\/p>\n
Max Verstappen: 161 points<\/p>\n
McLaren: 172 points<\/p>\n
(Lando Norris: 115 points)<\/p>\n
(Oscar Piastri: 57 points)<\/p>\n
Verstappen\u2019s might relative to McLaren is even more stark if we tally the points since Piastri crashed out of the Azerbaijan Grand Prix, roughly the start of his downturn.<\/p>\n
Drivers championship, rounds 17 to 22<\/p>\n
Max Verstappen: 136 points<\/p>\n
McLaren: 139 points<\/p>\n
(Lando Norris: 97 points)<\/p>\n
(Oscar Piastri: 42 points)<\/p>\n
The circumstances are different, but not wildly so. Alonso and Hamilton pinched points from each other over the year and occasionally in the final rounds, but Hamilton, like Piastri, had the bulk of his scrappy races in the final part of the season, coinciding with a strong run home from R\u00e4ikk\u00f6nen.<\/p>\n
And while 2007 is often touted as a comparison, the Las Vegas double disqualification makes a Verstappen championship much more likely by the numbers than it does R\u00e4ikk\u00f6nen\u2019s title in 2007 or even, as a second parallel, Sebastian Vettel\u2019s come-from-behind triumph in 2010.<\/p>\n
Comparable championship gaps, two rounds remaining<\/p>\n
2007: Kimi R\u00e4ikk\u00f6nen trailed Lewis Hamilton by 42.5 points*<\/p>\n
2010: Sebastian Vettel trailed Fernando Alonso by 25 points<\/p>\n
2025: Max Verstappen trails Lando Norris by 24 points<\/p>\n
*R\u00e4ikk\u00f6nen\u2019s deficit was 17 points but under the old points system that awarded 10 points for victory; the gap has been multiplied by 2.5 to reflect today\u2019s 25-point victory value.<\/p>\n
In the context of the above numbers, Verstappen\u2019s form isn\u2019t just threatening, it\u2019s portentous.<\/p>\n
Oscar on start: “Barged out of the way” | 01:56<\/p>\n
THE COUNTERPOINT<\/p>\n
But the above comparable title gaps also make a counterpoint in favour of McLaren\u2019s position.<\/p>\n
Vettel\u2019s comeback in 2010 wasn\u2019t from second in the standings; it was from fourth and behind teammate Mark Webber, who seemed the more likely Red Bull Racing driver to win the championship.<\/p>\n
Webber had led the championship earlier in the year before a series of errors and misfortune and declining form saw Alonso seize the ascendancy, but with two rounds to go he trailed by only 11 points.<\/p>\n
But Red Bull Racing \u2014 controversially at the time \u2014 refused to back Webber as its most likely champion.<\/p>\n
As McLaren is, it too was apparently willing to risk losing the title over prioritising one driver \u2014 or, you might argue, it was willing to risk the title over prioritising the driver who wasn\u2019t Vettel.<\/p>\n
The matter flared at the following race in Brazil, where Vettel led home a Red Bull Racing one-two. Had he been told to hand Webber victory, the Australian would have gone into the title final with a deficit of only one point to Alonso rather than eight.<\/p>\n
But Red Bull Racing\u2019s gamble ultimately proved correct.<\/p>\n
Webber qualified and finished behind Alonso in Abu Dhabi when a pit stop gamble got both the Spaniard and the Australian stuck in traffic.<\/p>\n
Vettel, meanwhile, qualified on pole and cruised to victory. From 15 points down, he moved to the top of the title table for the first time in his career and won the championship.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s not just that Vettel ended up winning the title that suggests Red Bull Racing was right not to intervene.<\/p>\n
Vettel won the championship by four points. Had he ceded victory to Webber in Brazil, Alonso would have won his third championship by three points.<\/p>\n
Vettel and Webber would have finished the season tied on 249 points.<\/p>\n
It would have been almost exactly the same outcome as 2007 but for the opposite reason \u2014 ironically for Alonso, who lost out both ways.<\/p>\n
You can mount the same argument for this season.<\/p>\n
Imagine if McLaren had backed Piastri when he extended his lead to 34 points after Norris\u2019s engine faulted in the Netherlands.<\/p>\n
Presumably Piastri would have been shuffled ahead in Italy in Singapore, gaining him a 12-point swing on Norris.<\/p>\n
But that wouldn\u2019t have been nearly enough to counteract his poor form in the United States and Mexico City, nor his crash and misfortune in Sao Paulo. It wouldn\u2019t have saved him from the qualifying yellow flags in Las Vegas either.<\/p>\n
Norris would still be on top of the title table, but he\u2019d lead Piastri by only 12 points and Verstappen by just 18 points \u2014 a worse outcome for the team for bringing the Red Bull Racing driver closer to first place.<\/p>\n
McLaren would have been answering questions about whether it backed the wrong driver in the title fight while Verstappen closed in on both.<\/p>\n
Team orders aren\u2019t as influential as they\u2019re sometimes made out to be.<\/p>\n
Think, for example, back to last year, when McLaren decided ahead of the Azerbaijan Grand Prix that it would use Piastri to help Norris\u2019s title campaign.<\/p>\n
Piastri won the race while Norris finished fourth after a disastrous qualifying session. Ironically it was Norris who helped Piastri via team orders when he compromised his own race to slow down Sergio P\u00e9rez, who was otherwise a risk of getting ahead through the pit stops.<\/p>\n
Italy and Singapore have been the only times since the Netherlands that Piastri and Norris have been close enough to each other on track to influence each other\u2019s races.<\/p>\n
At every grand prix other than Italy and Singapore, Norris has been too far ahead to benefit Piastri \u2014 and Piastri has been too far behind to benefit Norris \u2014 rendering the question redundant.<\/p>\n
Analysing pivotal Piastri lap 1 hit | 04:52<\/p>\n
BUT IF NOT NOW, WHEN?<\/p>\n
Team boss Andrea Stella, speaking at the US Grand Prix, made clear the only circumstances in which team orders would be permissible.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen it comes to having to make a call as to a driver, this will only be led by mathematics,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
With Norris\u2019s lead out to 24 points ahead of this weekend\u2019s Qatar Grand Prix, we\u2019re agonisingly close to that threshold.<\/p>\n
But unlike the run of races in which Norris whittled down and then reversed his title deficit, Piastri no longer looks adrift in terms of pace.<\/p>\n
He was competitive in Sao Paulo. While his sprint crash was a combination of bad luck and human error, he would have finished at least second in the grand prix were it not for his roundly criticised penalty.<\/p>\n
Similarly, he was likely bound for the front row in Las Vegas before yellow flags in qualifying left him down the order. While the disqualification meant it made no difference to his score, it did make a difference to the discourse around his season.<\/p>\n
It simultaneously makes a potential Norris priority more valuable but also more controversial.<\/p>\n
In Qatar, a track at which Piastri has historically been strong, he\u2019s likely to be competitive enough to materially help Norris in some way \u2014 but that means he might be strong enough to boost his championship hopes at his teammate\u2019s expense.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s a fiendishly difficult question McLaren must surely be contemplating, even if the team says it will only intervene when one of the drivers drops out of mathematical contention.<\/p>\n
But say Piastri and Norris have a tough sprint but the Australian leads the Englishman in the grand prix behind Verstappen in the lead. The difference in position is the difference between Piastri staying in and being eliminated from the title race. Would that be grounds for intervention?<\/p>\n
What if the difference in that scenario is three points \u2014 the same number of points Piastri lost to team orders in Italy or McLaren\u2019s nonintervention in Singapore?<\/p>\n
What about if Verstappen trails Norris by only 15 points after Qatar and Piastri is still 24 points down \u2014 mathematically in it but only just?<\/p>\n
What if Verstappen was less than 10 points down and Piastri was still a full race win behind?<\/p>\n
What if it was less than five points?<\/p>\n
The questions are prickly and the answers are uncomfortable.<\/p>\n
But Brown is unmoved.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re playing offence; we\u2019re not playing defence,\u201d he told Beyond the Grid.<\/p>\n
\u201cI want to make sure if we don\u2019t win, he beats us, we don\u2019t beat ourselves. That\u2019s important.\u201d<\/p>\n
But if Verstappen clinches the championship in Abu Dhabi, history might reflect that there wasn\u2019t really a difference.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"With two rounds remaining, McLaren must be experiencing an extreme combination of conflicting emotions. There\u2019s the thrill of…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":311429,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[573],"tags":[944,2095,13273,24294,1724,64,63,689,11308,2791,81114,2774,176466,176472,67608,176471,176467,176468,173137,70686,21779,16177,2057,176473,817,845,176476,813,816,653,174556,2105,841,2328,1737,2623,174548,122762,859,825,2184,23956,16255,2627,176469,2041,2067,677,137982,176470,88575,2119,109461,16260,13777,161444,2103,765,851,2072,942,176463,102394,11298,2812,3595,85,158243,31283,176464,43353,176465,21760,176477,22294,43367,176475,2614,176474,12000,2062],"class_list":["post-311428","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-formula-1","tag-abu-dhabi","tag-america","tag-andrea-stella","tag-anthony-davidson","tag-asia","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-australia-and-new-zealand","tag-brazil","tag-central-america","tag-championship-aspirations","tag-championship-hopes","tag-comparable-championship-gaps","tag-comparable-title-gaps","tag-comprehensive-victory","tag-controversial-team-philosophy","tag-disastrous-qualifying-session","tag-doomsday-blueprint","tag-double-disqualification","tag-dream-scenario","tag-drivers-championship","tag-drivers-title","tag-europe","tag-extreme-combination","tag-f1","tag-fernando-alonso","tag-fight-fair","tag-formula-1","tag-formula1","tag-fox-sports-news","tag-geoff-smith","tag-getty-images-inc","tag-grand-prix","tag-italy","tag-lando-norris","tag-las-vegas","tag-luke-doherty","tag-maiden-title","tag-mark-webber","tag-max-verstappen","tag-mexico","tag-mexico-city","tag-netherlands","tag-nevada","tag-no-team-orders-position","tag-north-america","tag-northern-america","tag-oceania","tag-pinching-points","tag-pit-stop-gamble","tag-pit-stops","tag-pit-talk","tag-points-system","tag-qatar","tag-qualifying-session","tag-race-win","tag-ron-dennis","tag-run-home","tag-sebastian-vettel","tag-sergio-perez","tag-singapore","tag-so-called-papaya","tag-so-called-papaya-rules","tag-south-america","tag-south-eastern-asia","tag-southern-europe","tag-sports","tag-sprint-crash","tag-team-orders","tag-title-defeat","tag-title-deficit","tag-title-enemies","tag-title-fight","tag-title-nightmare-rerun","tag-title-race","tag-title-table","tag-title-calibre-car","tag-united-states-of-america","tag-victory-value","tag-western-asia","tag-western-europe"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/311428","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=311428"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/311428\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/311429"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=311428"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=311428"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=311428"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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