After 23 Grands Prix, six sprint races and more than eight months of racing, the 2025 Formula One season will come down to the final race. And three drivers still have a real chance to win the championship.
Max Verstappen won his second straight full-length race at the Qatar Grand Prix, taking advantage of a strategy error from his McLaren rivals to gain the maximum number of points on Sunday. Oscar Piastri, who started from pole position, managed to still come in second, while Lando Norris slipped from second on the starting grid to fourth at the checkered flag.
Carlos Sainz scored his second podium of the season, finishing in third to cement an impressive weekend and year from Williams.
With the victory, Verstappen is now just 12 points shy (396) of Norris (408) going into the final race at the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix next Sunday. Piastri isn’t out of the mix either, sitting on 392 points and with plenty to like about his weekend after winning the Qatar sprint and posting the top time in qualifying. But if Verstappen can repeat the exact same results next weekend (a win, Piastri in second and Norris in fourth), he would win his fifth drivers’ championship in a row.
Oscar Piastri’s Perfect Weekend Compromised by McLaren Blunder
Despite the drive from Sainz, there’s little doubt that the story of the weekend was yet another strategy blunder from McLaren.
Coming into the 2025 Qatar Grand Prix, the FIA and tire supplier Pirelli announced that drivers would be required to adhere to a maximum of 25 laps in any one stint around Lusail International Circuit. After 25 laps went by, a driver would be required to come in for a pit stop. The decision was made given the nature of the track in Qatar, where cars often experience higher tire wear, and would require all 20 drivers to make at least two pit stops over the course of 57 laps.
So when Pierre Gasly clipped Nico Hülkenberg in the opening stage of Sunday’s race, resulting in a safety car on Lap 7, an opportunity presented itself. Teams would be able to pit and save time under a safety car, run for 25 laps and pit just once more to finish to race on another 25-lap stint. The math worked out to perfection.
Just three drivers (other than Hülkenberg, who was unable to get started again after the crash) opted not to take the clear and obvious choice: Piastri, Norris and Haas’s Esteban Ocon.
The decision was instantly baffling. Piastri and Norris, running in first and third at the time of the safety car, still needed to pit twice, but then missed out on the chance to have a shorter stop during the safety car. That’s exactly what they did, with Piastri coming in on Laps 24 and 42 and Norris pitting at the end of Laps 25 and 44, while the rest of the field followed the same strategy—stops on Laps 7 and 32. While the decision gave the two McLarens track position at the time of the safety car, it sacrificed the ability for both drivers to run from the front later on.
On a track that’s become infamous for how difficult it is to pass, as evidenced by a lack of overtakes in Saturday’s sprint race, the decision not to pit Piastri or Norris was devastating. Piastri would manage to climb back up thanks to a bold move on Kimi Antonelli on Lap 30 and a pair of excellent pit stops, but Norris struggled for the rest of the race. The championship leader was poised to finish fifth (after being just a tenth of a second shy of pole position in Saturday’s qualifying sessions) until Antonelli made a mistake on the penultimate lap, allowing Norris’s McLaren to dart up into fourth place.
Naturally, the conversation shifted quickly to why McLaren didn’t opt to split the strategies of Piastri and Norris when the safety car opportunity presented itself so early in the race. But that would seemingly violate the team’s idea of fairness, or the so-called “Papaya Rules,” prioritizing one driver over the over when both still have a legitimate shot at winning the first title of their career. Suffice it to say, neither driver was pleased with the decision after the race with Piastri saying he was “speechless” with the result shortly after crossing the finish line.
Can Max Verstappen Really Pull Out a Fifth Straight Title?
Sunday’s outcome is once again evidence that McLaren’s approach to the season has left the door cracked open for another driver to slip through. At one point this season, Verstappen may not have been in the same room as that door, but now he’s on the verge of bursting through and stealing away one of the most improbable titles in recent history.
The four-time reigning champion left his home race in Zandvoort at the Dutch Grand Prix down 104 points to Piastri, who at the time was the driver to beat atop the standings. He’s since made up 108 points on the 24-year-old Australian—and that was less than three months ago. Verstappen made up that ground in just eight races.
Given the rollercoaster of the season at Red Bull, Verstappen finding himself with a chance is hard to fathom. Who could forget when the 28-year-old saw red in Spain and seemingly slowed down to cause an incident with George Russell? Or two races later when a collision with Antonelli on the first lap of the Austrian Grand Prix resulted in a DNF? Or when he qualified 16th in Brazil, making it the first time he’d ever failed to advance out of Q1 on pure pace?
And that’s just on the track. When Red Bull appeared to take a big step back at the start of the season, many pointed to what has been going on behind the scenes. Renowned car designer Adrian Newey and technical director Jonathan Wheatley left the team for other opportunities as tension began to grow between Verstappen’s father, Jos, and team principal Christian Horner. The latter was suddenly ousted after the British Grand Prix, following a fifth-place finish from Verstappen in a race where he began on pole.
Success didn’t come immediately once Laurent Mekies was promoted from Racing Bulls to replace Horner, but steadily the results began to come. Vestappen finished second in the Netherlands, before coming out of the summer break with victories in Monza and Baku. He later dominated both the sprint and Grand Prix in Austin, before back-to-back wins the past two weekends in Las Vegas and Qatar. He’s won five of the last eight races and is now in the chase with Norris and Piastri, each of whom have seven victories this season.
For most of Verstappen’s run of titles in recent years, he’s had the luxury of amassing a humongous advantage and holding on to hoist the trophy at the end of the season. Even in 2021, when he won his first championship over Lewis Hamilton on the final lap of the final race, he was more competitive throughout the year. In 2025, Verstappen has never once led in the standings. He hasn’t even been second since he won in Japan, the third race of the season in early April.
It’s hard to come up with a more impressive comeback in a sport like Formula One, but if Verstappen can pull out one more miracle in a year of improbable results, he may be able to emerge from 2025 with his most unlikely accolade yet.
What to Expect at the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix
Next Sunday, all three of the championship hopefuls will make way for Yas Marina Circuit, where the 2025 season will be decided.
Last season, Norris dominated the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix from start to finish, qualifying on pole and then beating the Ferrari pair of Carlos Sainz and Charles Leclerc comfortably. Piastri and Verstappen actually came into contact on the opening lap of the race, for which the latter was given a 10-second penalty. Verstappen would finish fifth, while Piastri would be involved in multiple other incidents before crossing the line in tenth.
Given that Piastri, Norris and Verstappen qualified in the top three spots, and in that order, in Qatar, there’s reason to believe that all three are back to top form at the right time. Obviously Norris will start from the position of power, given his advantage in the standings, but Sunday’s Grand Prix showed that fortunes can change quickly.
McLaren will have to ask itself some tough questions about its approach going into the final race of the season, while Verstappen has a chance to retain his champion status for a fifth straight season. Everything is on the line in Abu Dhabi, for what should be one of the most exciting finishes in F1 history.
This article was originally published on www.si.com as Max Verstappen and Oscar Piastri Deliver in Qatar, Paving Way for Thrilling Finale.
