The points are on Oscar Piastri’s side. The momentum is with Max Verstappen. McLaren has a faster car than its results suggest. So who is really in control of an increasingly captivating Formula 1 title fight?
The basic numbers tell you that this is still very much Piastri’s championship to lose. He is 40 points clear of Verstappen and can (just about) afford to be beaten by him in every single sprint and grand prix before the end of the season and still be champion. Not that he would want to win it that way.
Lando Norris, meanwhile, has crept closer to his team-mate again and offset most of the damage inflicted by his Dutch Grand Prix retirement. Just 14 points back from Piastri, Norris is absolutely in the equation – and a complicating factor for McLaren as it must continue to manage having two drivers openly contesting for a title Verstappen has a chance to steal.
What’s in McLaren’s hands
The top two drivers in the championship being McLaren drivers still indicates that the team can shape its own destiny.
This is a message team principal Andrea Stella, who labelled Verstappen a serious title contender three races ago in Azerbaijan, is very keen to stress.
“The danger for me is the same as there was in Baku,” said Stella after the United States Grand Prix, won by Verstappen.
“When I say something, I mean it. It’s because of the experience, it’s because of understanding the trend, understanding the circuits that we were going to face from Baku onwards.
“For me there’s no mystery, and we know that when Max has the material to win, he becomes a very serious candidate to win.
“It doesn’t change what our understanding of the situation is, it doesn’t change what we do. We just have to keep maximising the performance and keep executing good weekends. And from this point of view, if we think of a race like Baku, we didn’t maximise the performance and we didn’t execute a perfect race.
“So definitely we have a large opportunity and the outcome of this season, and the drivers’ championship is in our hands, it’s not in someone else’s hands. That’s the mind that we want to have and that’s the mind that we will have.”
It is absolutely the right attitude to have. Clearly, there were opportunities for McLaren to do better in Azerbaijan, in Singapore, in the US. Red Bull did not blow Piastri and Norris out of the water on sheer pace every time. Different circumstances – sometimes driver, sometimes team, sometimes both – meant that as a collective they have underachieved.
But the potential is there to do better and this is where the confidence, or the optimism, that McLaren can still control the title battle comes from. What’s important, though, is the difference between that and what is happening in reality.
The form factor
Form tells a different story to the championship standings. Verstappen still has a lot of ground to make up but has taken 64 points out of Piastri over the past four weekends, so momentum in this title battle is very much with the outsider.
Even Verstappen is now admitting “for sure the chance is there” – a clear shift from a few races ago when he was not even entertaining the prospect of winning the title.
Asked if he would have believed someone telling him he would be in contention at this stage when he was 104 points adrift four races ago, Verstappen said: “No. I would have told him he was an idiot.
“But we found a good way with the car. It’s simple as that.”
With Piastri and Norris now clashing at two events in a row, team orders still being a distraction, and Red Bull’s competitive revival now being absolutely undeniable, McLaren’s having a wobble. This is nothing new in championship run-ins. It is threatening to derail McLaren’s bid to win both championships but McLaren will point out it’s only ‘threatening’ to – it hasn’t yet, and it might not.
While Verstappen’s on a roll and catching up, he has been helped significantly by the McLarens having a very…sticky patch: Norris’s engine shutdown at Zandvoort, Piastri crashing out in Baku, the two being wiped out in the same incident in the Austin sprint. It’s why Verstappen has scored as many points since the summer break as the two McLarens combined.
If the respective seasons of Piastri and Norris continue to be so scrappy, Verstappen’s run will not just continue, the big points swings will keep happening. And he still needs some help, as time is against him.
Five grands prix and two sprints mean there are 141 points on the table. Winning every single race will be extremely difficult and even if he does, Verstappen will only guarantee outscoring Piastri by 37 points – if Piastri finished second in each of those five grands prix and two remaining sprints. Hence Verstappen isn’t in total control of his own destiny.
But that help that Verstappen still needs could well come from the two McLarens taking points off each other. If Norris keeps beating Piastri, suddenly the theoretical Verstappen gain grows by three points in every grand prix, and by an extra point in the two sprints. Potentially more if the likes of Ferrari and Mercedes can interlope on some of those remaining tracks.
More relentless Verstappen winning, and Piastri finishing behind Norris every time from now until the end of the season, equals a 54-point gain. In other words, Verstappen would be champion.
Verstappen’s key advantage
McLaren is refusing to entertain the possibility of forcing Norris to support a Piastri title bid as it wants the two drivers to be free to race given they have a maiden world championship on the table.
“The fact that there are five races and two sprints means that we can also increase the gap to Max,” Stella said. “That’s how I see things.
“We have good tracks coming for our car and I think we have more that we could have exploited out of our car and to some extent the drivers themselves. They recognise themselves that they could have done a better job than some of the previous races.
“We look at the next five races as opportunities to increase the gap to Max and when it comes to having to make a call on a driver, this will only be led by mathematics. We are not going to close the door unless this is closed by mathematics.”
Stella is sending the right message. It’s down to the team and drivers to follow it. Because as he hints at, Verstappen and Red Bull have basically been flawless since the summer break in a way McLaren has not.
And remember that Verstappen has been through the championship pressure cooker several times. So has Red Bull. Their rivals have not: for many at McLaren this is the first drivers’ championship on the line, and for both drivers it’s the first real chance.
It is not weak to start creaking in this situation, it just reflects the unfathomably intense reality that only a few people have really experienced. Verstappen had his own wobbly moments back in 2021 and will be all the stronger for it.
This gives him arguably his main advantage. We know what Verstappen can do in such scenarios – at this level, though, it’s unknown for Piastri and Norris (who at least has some experience from a failed attempt to get into title contention last year). The contenders with the least experience are in the most pressured positions.
So who is in control? That depends on whether you prioritise points, momentum, psychology or experience, but it’s not Verstappen. Not yet. Even though many might well back him from here.
He’s still the outsider, the underdog playing catch up in the title run-in – which is a new position for him and one that seems to bring the best out of him when he has a car that has improved like the Red Bull has.
This would still be a championship that Piastri and Norris would be a lot more disappointed to lose from here than Verstappen, though. That further reflects who is really – or should be – in control, regardless of the clear danger Verstappen poses.
First Appeared on
Source link
