How McLaren’s blunder has put Norris’ Formula 1 title bid in peril

McLaren driver Lando Norris and Oscar Piastri are in serious danger of losing out on the 2025 Formula 1 Driver Championship title after their strategies backfired in Lusail and defending champion Max Verstappen won the Qatar Grand Prix on Sunday.

After finishing in fourth, Norris’ lead in the Formula 1 Driver Championship standings has been cut down to 12, while Piastri, who finished second in Lusail, has dropped from joint second to third. While Norris leads with 408 points with only one race left in Abu Dhabi, Verstappen (396) and Piastri (392) are second and third, respectively.

Norris pays for McLaren blunder in Qatar

Interestingly, Piastri started the Qatar GP from pole and Norris was second on the grid, but McLaren made strategic blunders in the race, allowing Verstappen to ruin the race.

The biggest blunder was McLaren not pitting during an early safety car intervention when all teams pitted both their drivers.

McLaren team chief Andrea Stella admitted after the race that they made a big mistake by not pitting during the safety car intervention.

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“It was a decision not to pit, and in fairness we didn’t expect everyone else to pit,” Stella said. “Obviously, once everyone pitted, it makes that the right thing to do.

“When you have the lead car, you don’t know what the others are going to do. The main reason was related to not expecting everyone else to pit, so it was a decision.

“And as a matter of fact it wasn’t the correct decision.”

Leader Norris, however, put up a brave face after a “gamble” that he admitted has dented his Driver Championship title chances.

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“It’s tough,” Norris said. “We just have to have faith in the team to make the right decision. It was a gamble, and we were the ones who took the gamble in a way. Now it’s the wrong decision, and we shouldn’t have done it — Oscar lost the win and I lost P2, so we didn’t do a good job today.

“We’ve done plenty of good jobs in other races. We won the constructors’ six races ago because of that. So, not our finest day, but that’s life.”

Stella added that the team would review their decisions and mistakes before making a strategy for the last Abu Dhabi Grand Prix next weekend. Norris just needs to finish on the podium to win the championship.