![\"Max](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/441ec24cacdbadeb392f656d63126729a16366f6.jpeg\")
<\/p>\nBut the 24-year-old turned that around with a flawless display in Qatar, only to be let down by his team. McLaren might have wrapped up the constructors\u2019 championship six rounds previously in Singapore, but they keep finding new ways to keep Verstappen in the hunt for a drivers\u2019 title that could have \u2013 should have \u2013 been sealed long before Sunday\u2019s latest own goal.<\/p>\n
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Piastri \u2013 who led Friday practice, took pole position and led every lap of Saturday\u2019s sprint race and led comfortably from pole in Sunday\u2019s grand prix \u2013 was in the box seat to win the 57-lap race when he had a three-second lead over Verstappen by lap seven. That was when the safety car was called to clean up debris from a crash involving German driver Nico Hulkenberg (Sauber) and Frenchman Pierre Gasly (Alpine).<\/p>\n
With the field restricted to slower speeds, Verstappen and every other driver on the track pitted \u2013 except for the McLarens. Mindful that Norris would be delayed behind Piastri in the pits as the Australian\u2019s car would be serviced first, McLaren instructed its drivers to stay on track.<\/p>\n
It was a mistake that crippled the races of both Piastri and Norris, handing Verstappen \u2013 who had been unable to match Piastri on pace all weekend \u2013 crucial track position later in the race.<\/p>\n
After Piastri made his mandatory second tyre stop from the lead with 16 laps left and Norris followed suit two laps later, Piastri was 17 seconds behind the Dutchman, while Norris was stuck in fifth behind Carlos Sainz (Williams) and Kimi Antonelli (Mercedes). Despite Piastri\u2019s tyres being 10 laps younger than Verstappen\u2019s, the gap was too big to overcome, and the Red Bull driver won by 7.995secs.<\/p>\n
By trying not to disadvantage Norris in the pits, McLaren torpedoed the results of both its drivers. It continued a poor run for the team after Norris and Piastri were disqualified and denied any points from their second- and fourth-place finishes seven days previously in Las Vegas after their cars failed post-race scrutineering.<\/p>\n
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Max Verstappen can hardly believe his luck as he soars back into serious contention for the F1 drivers\u2019 crown.Credit: Getty Images<\/p>\n
\u201cSpeechless \u2026 I don\u2019t know any words,\u201d Piastri said over team radio on his in-lap back to the pits.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m feeling pretty crap, as you can imagine,\u201d he expanded later in his post-race interviews.<\/p>\n
\u201cI don\u2019t really know what to say. We didn\u2019t get it right with the strategy. I left it in the team\u2019s hands to decide what the best strategy was. They\u2019ve clearly got more information than I do.<\/p>\n
\u201cIn hindsight, it\u2019s pretty obvious what we would have done. I\u2019m sure we\u2019ll discuss it as a team. It\u2019s not all bad obviously, it\u2019s been a good weekend and the pace has been really strong. But obviously a little bit tough to swallow at the moment.\u201d<\/p>\n
Verstappen, meanwhile, could barely conceal a knowing smirk, describing McLaren\u2019s indecision as \u201can interesting move\u201d.<\/p>\n
Speaking with Sky Sports, McLaren team principal Andrea Stella immediately mentioned Norris when asked if McLaren\u2019s season-long quest to maintain fairness between its drivers was behind the decision to not pit at least one of its cars when the remainder of the field clearly believed pitting was the only call.<\/p>\n
\u201cIn fairness, we didn\u2019t expect everyone else to pit,\u201d Stella said.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen everyone else behind you pits, then it makes it the right thing to do. That could have been a loss for Lando in pitting both cars [together] with the double-stack, but the main reason was not expecting everyone else to pit. It wasn\u2019t the correct decision.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe understand Oscar being extremely disappointed because from the start he has done everything right. We always want to keep the options open for both drivers. They\u2019re both in position to win the championship.\u201d<\/p>\n
All season, McLaren\u2019s internal \u201cPapaya rules\u201d ethos of letting its two drivers race one another fairly for the championship has come into question, increasingly so as Verstappen \u2013 the sole focus of his Red Bull team \u2013 went from being a theoretical contender to a very real one.<\/p>\n
In an interview with F1\u2019s Beyond the Grid podcast in November, McLaren CEO Zak Brown said McLaren would rather lose the title to Verstappen than enforce team orders to guarantee Norris or Piastri wins the championship; \u201cForget it, that\u2019s not how we go racing,\u201d Brown said.<\/p>\n
On Sunday, it appeared McLaren threw away a near-certain win to double-down on that slogan and prove that it was not prioritising one driver over another.<\/p>\n
Red Bull, battle-hardened in title fights where McLaren hasn\u2019t won a drivers\u2019 championship in 17 years, must hardly believe their luck.<\/p>\n
Verstappen\u2019s victory halved his points deficit to Norris in one fell swoop, while Piastri \u2013 who hasn\u2019t been outside the top two in the standings for the previous 20 rounds since the Japanese Grand Prix in April \u2013 now needs to win in Abu Dhabi and have Norris finish sixth or worse to take the title given his 16-point deficit.<\/p>\n
Under the F1 scoring system that has been in place since 2010, there has only been one driver win from a similar position of disadvantage to that which Piastri now finds himself in. That was in the first year of the system, when Sebastian Vettel came from 15 points down in third place to win in Abu Dhabi and steal the title from Ferrari\u2019s Fernando Alonso and Red Bull teammate \u2013 and coincidentally Piastri\u2019s manager \u2013 Mark Webber.<\/p>\n
Piastri knows the scale of the task ahead, but Sunday showed that \u2013 even if he can reprise the early-season form that re-emerged in Qatar \u2013 that might not be enough.<\/p>\n
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\u201cThe pace was very strong and I feel like I didn\u2019t put a foot wrong. It\u2019s just a shame to not walk away with a win,\u201d he said, before being asked what he needs to do in Abu Dhabi.<\/p>\n
\u201cJust drive like I did this weekend, that\u2019s all I can do,\u201d he replied.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was more than good enough to dominate this weekend. If I can do the same thing next weekend, I\u2019ll be a happy man.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"But the 24-year-old turned that around with a flawless display in Qatar, only to be let down by…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":319406,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[573],"tags":[64,63,817,813,816,85],"class_list":{"0":"post-319405","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-formula-1","8":"tag-au","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-f1","11":"tag-formula-1","12":"tag-formula1","13":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/319405","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=319405"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/319405\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/319406"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=319405"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=319405"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=319405"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}