McLaren disqualifications and Verstappen title threat – F1 Q&A

Following a dramatic Las Vegas Grand Prix, the 2025 Formula 1 Drivers’ Championship is on its way to a thrilling conclusion.

Lando Norris thought he had extended his championship lead on McLaren team-mate Oscar Piastri following his second-placed finish but the pair were disqualified for a technical infringement in the hours after the chequered flag.

Max Verstappen, the winner in Las Vegas, and Max Piastri, the winner, are now 24 points clear of Norris.

If the Briton earns two points in Qatar, Piastri and Verstappen will take the title for the first time.

The race, at Lusail International Circuit, is the penultimate event on the 2025 calendar, with the season-ending Abu Dhabi Grand Prix following from 5-7 December.

Everyone is aware that Lando Norris faces the only real threat in the championship, Max Verstappen alone. Should McLaren pull the plug on Oscar Piastri to focus on Norris, and if they did, when? Or do we watch a repeat of the year 2007? – Dan

Norris leads both Piastri and Verstappen by 24 points heading into the final two races of the season.

Although all three of Norris have a significant mathematical advantage, it can only be stated with certainty that none of them can win the title.

Andrea Stella, the team’s principal, did not speak to the media after the Las Vegas Grand Prix, but he has consistently emphasized the team’s approach to the championship with both drivers.

After the US Grand Prix, he said: “When it comes to having to make a call as to a driver, this will only be led by mathematics.

“I can recall at least 2007 and 2010 when you go to the final race and the winner is actually the (driver in) third (place going into the race). Therefore, we won’t close the door until mathematics has already solved this.

That makes redundant any questions as to when McLaren should favour Norris if they were going to, because they have consistently said they won’t.

However, it also asserts that McLaren is aware of potential scenarios.

Stella discusses “leaning on experience.” Don’t forget that he has taken this approach at McLaren after being directly involved in both those years he mentioned.

With two races left, he was race engineer to Kimi Raikkonen in 2007, despite being 17 points adrift behind Lewis Hamilton and Fernando Alonso under the old system, which is the equivalent of 43 now.

And in 2010, he was engineering Alonso when Ferrari misjudged their strategy at the season’s final race in Abu Dhabi, where Sebastian Vettel was eventually the winner.

I find it hard to believe that the driver, who won 14 of his first 16 races and recorded seven podium finishes, is now trying really hard to even finish in fifth place. Is it a case of Oscar Piastri feeling the pressure and leading to a few really costly mistakes, or do the tracks really differ that much throughout the season? Allegra

It is indeed remarkable that Piastri hasn’t won in 15 races since winning the Dutch Grand Prix.

I actually asked him on media day in Las Vegas whether he knew what had been going on, and this was his answer.

He said, “Austin and Mexico were quite different from the other races that had not gone so well.”

There was a blatant pace deficit and something fundamentally wrong there.

“The other races have just been a combination of different things going wrong.

“Baku was obviously what it was (where he crashed three times and jumped the first) was. Singapore performed fairly well overall, but it’s obvious that the race didn’t go as I wanted.

“And even Brazil, the pace was good at points. The remainder of the weekend was not significantly affected by the sprint crash. There were some outcomes that didn’t go as well for the rest of the weekend.

” So from a pace and performance point of view, Brazil was actually quite good, it was just that there were a lot of things that happened that meant the results weren’t on the table.

There were a few races where I had to do some head scratching and figure out what was going on, but others were what some might consider to be a difficult world of motorsport.

That is a decent summary of what has been happening.

But there’s another factor to bear in mind, in that Piastri is not driving in isolation. Additionally, he is being compared to his team-mates, particularly his teammate.

After a shaky start to the season, Lando Norris has unquestionably increased a few gears since the summer break.

Norris himself says the upward trend started before that – and it seems it began with the introduction of a tweak to the front suspension geometry in Canada aimed at enabling him to better feel the front of the car at the limit.

Prior to the Dutch Grand Prix, Piastri’s head-to-head qualifying statistics were weighted in his favor, but the margin was only 0.0999 seconds in terms of pure pace.

Since Monza, Piastri has only outqualified Norris once, in Singapore, and the pace gap is 0. 226 seconds short of Norris’ advantage.

Does the McLaren infringement in Las Vegas actually have an impact on how well the car performs? – Rob

The short answer is “yes,” because that is why the rule exists.

The team can run the car lower than the regulations permit thanks to the skid blocks inserted into the underbody “plank.”

Fundamentally, the lower a Formula 1 car is run to the ground, the more downforce it will produce, and therefore the quicker it will be.

Having said that, this scenario is extremely complex.

In order to lessen the likelihood of a phenomenon known as “porpoising,” which affected a number of teams when the current rules were implemented, the floors of the current cars were raised between 2022 and 2023.

This is where a car gets sucked to the ground as the downforce increases at speed to the point that the airflow under the floor ‘ stalls’.

The car jumps up only for the airflow to stop working, and the car then sucked back until the same thing happens again.

Porpoising occurs at about 5 Hz, causing the car to quickly slam up and down at high speeds. This could be seen on in-car cameras in Las Vegas.

Porpoising has become a fairly uncommon topic in recent years as a result of the rule change and improved understanding of the current cars by teams.

It’s interesting that it kept happening on the McLaren in Las Vegas. And that the car was subsequently found to have worn its skids too much.

It’s not surprising that the car was prohibited at the end of the race because of the porpoising that causes it to hit the ground more frequently, especially at the back.

Inevitably, some will link the return of what McLaren called “unexpected” porpoising, i.e., was one a result of the other?

Having said that, it’s hard to be definitive in saying that the fact that the car was running low enough to breach the measurements requirements definitely made it faster, especially in the race, because porpoising is not a performance-positive phenomenon.

However, there are no clear rules. Either the vehicle complies or not. If it does not, it’s illegal and is disqualified. It is irrelevant that McLaren insisted it was unintentional and that the FIA agreed.

The argument that this is harsh on the drivers because it’s not their fault is irrelevant is one that is sometimes heard.

Are any of the top three drivers at risk of receiving a grid penalty for changing gearbox, engine, etc.? – David

Teams never reveal this sort of information ahead of time.

If they had to switch engines, both Max Verstappen and McLaren drivers would be subject to a grid penalty.

Verstappen has already used one this season, using five different engines total. Lando Norris and Oscar Piastri have not – they are on their maximum permitted allocation of four.

Carlos Sainz is having a very good second half of the season, seemingly putting Williams team-mate Alex Albon in the shade. After this, is either driver’s level being revised? What is the root of Albon’s difficulties? – Eamon

Sainz has produced two outstanding performances in qualifying for second and third on the grid in Azerbaijan and Las Vegas, and he is indeed having a good second half of the season.

However, the Williams drivers’ battle is still close, even if it seems odd that when one performs well, the other does not, especially when Sainz performs well.

It’s not fair to say that Sainz is “putting Albon in the shade”, nor that the British-born Thai is “struggling”. In any case, not as a definitive statement.

Yes, Albon crashed while Sainz finished third in Las Vegas. But it was only the race before in Brazil that Sainz qualified last for the sprint, and was beaten by Albon in qualifying for the main race by more than 0.4secs.

They have one of the closest team-mate matches of the season, going 14-13 in Sainz’s favor on merit, but the average gap between them is 0.0445 seconds in Albon’s favor.

Despite the Spaniard’s recent impressive results, it’s also worthwhile to mention that Albon is still three places and 25 points ahead of Sainz in the championship.