F1 championship permutations: How Lando Norris can win title at Qatar Grand Prix on Sunday as Oscar Piastri, Max Verstappen try to stop McLaren driver | F1 News

Lando Norris could become the 2025 Formula 1 world champion on Sunday at the Qatar Grand Prix, but how can he do it?

How can Norris win the championship?

Oscar Piastri won Saturday’s Sprint race in Qatar with Norris finishing third ahead of Max Verstappen in fourth.

Piastri has cut Norris’s title lead to 22 points, while Verstappen is now down to 25 points with just two races remaining in Qatar on Sunday and Abu Dhabi next weekend, where a maximum of 50 points is available.

Norris will be world champion with one more race to go if he holds a 26 or more point lead over Piastri and 25 ahead of Verstappen. After the Qatar Grand Prix (Lights Out at 4pm live). Sky Sports F1). This means he must gain four points over Piastri and actually finish ahead of Verstappen.

The two most likely scenarios for doing so are winning the race, where he would clear his rivals by at least seven points, or finishing second ahead of Verstappen, with Piastri missing the podium.

Norris must finish in the top eight on Sunday to have any chance of clinching the title, but he will need a lot of help from Piastri and Verstappen.

What are Piastri and Verstappen’s chances now?

The sprint doesn’t change much as Norris still has the championship in his hands. Piastri and Verstappen must effectively beat the Briton to remain in title contention, although Piastri could afford a DNF if Norris scores fewer than four points.

Realistically, both drivers will want to get at least double the points over Norris in Sunday’s race to give themselves a better chance in Abu Dhabi, and the best way to do that is with a win.

If Piastri can continue his form in the Sprint portion of the weekend in Qatar, he can do so, while Verstappen hopes Red Bull can make positive changes to his car’s settings that will help his performance.

In Verstappen’s case, he must have 24 points or lesstrailed Norris to make his stunning comeback to the final round in Abu Dhabi.

The reason he doesn’t get 25 points is that even if Verstappen wins in Abu Dhabi, he will be tied on seven wins with Norris. Therefore, the tie-break scenario would go to second place, and Norris currently has eight places to Verstappen’s four.

Piastri could still be 25 points behind Norris Since the McLaren duo have the same number of wins (eight), Piastri’s victory in Abu Dhabi would put him ninth and he would be world champion on countback.

Will McLaren prefer Norris?

McLaren has consistently stated that it will support both drivers’ championship ambitions until they are mathematically out of title contention.

Earlier this month, McLaren CEO Zak Brown said he would rather lose the championship to Verstappen than one of his drivers.

Brown pointed to the 2007 Formula 1 season when McLaren duo Lewis Hamilton and Fernando Alonso narrowly lost out to Kimi Raikkonen in the Drivers’ Championship, with the team not backing a single driver.

Raikkonen had 17 points, the equivalent of 42 using the current points system, behind then-championship leader Hamilton with two laps to go, but still managed to overturn the deficit.

“That’s not how we do races. If it happened in 2007 again, I’d rather have that outcome than any other outcome that involves playing favorites — we wouldn’t do that,” Brown said.

With Piastri one win away from Norris in the race, McLaren will stick to its principles despite the now serious threat to Verstappen.

The Woking-based club cannot afford to ask Piastri to play a back-up role in case Norris gets a poor result on Sunday in Qatar.

Team principal Andrea Stella previously stated: “There is no reason to do this. We have always said that as long as the calculations do not say otherwise, we will leave it to the drivers to fight for their chance of final victory, and that is how it will be in Qatar.”

“Let’s not forget that if someone had told us at the beginning of the season that we would find ourselves in this situation with two races to go, we would have signed up for it! Now we will fight for the double world championship with confidence and awareness of our strength.”

Will McLaren be more cautious after Las Vegas ruling out?

So far, the answer seems to be no. There was a theory that McLaren would have to raise the car’s ride height in Qatar to avoid porpoising, which is when a car bounces at high speed, so as not to wear down the skid blocks and the plank underneath the car.

However, they outperformed the car in Qatar and there were no signs of large sparks flying from the car as we saw in Las Vegas.

The Qatar and Abu Dhabi circuits are relatively smooth compared to Las Vegas too, but there could be some post-race tension in the McLaren garage if they are repeatedly disqualified.

Sky Sports F1 schedule for the Qatar GP

Sunday 30 November
11.55am: Featured Formula 2 race
2.30pm: Grand Prix Sunday: Preparation for the Qatar Grand Prix
4pm: Qatar Grand Prix
6pm: Checkered flag: Qatar Grand Prix reaction
7pm: Ted’s notebook

Formula 1’s exciting title race continues with the Qatar Grand Prix on Sunday at 4pm (starting at 2.30pm, live on Sky Sports F1. Stream Sky Sports with NOW – no contract, cancel anytime)