What will McLaren do if Verstappen is set to win title? F1 Q&A

The Formula 1 drivers ‘ championship will be decided in a three-way final race showdown in Abu Dhabi between Lando Norris, Max Verstappen and Oscar Piastri.

Verstappen, the winner of Red Bull’s Qatar race, will have a chance to win five consecutive drivers’ titles if he makes an unlikely comeback on Sunday.

Briton Norris goes into the final race with a 12-point lead over the Dutchman and 16 points clear of McLaren team-mate Piastri.

Two laps to go in Abu Dhabi: Max Verstappen is winning, Oscar Piastri is second, George Russell is third with Lando Norris fourth. Is Oscar given the command to allow both vehicles to pass? – Chris

Following Qatar, McLaren’s team principal Andrea Stella reiterated the company’s commitment to both drivers and their ability to pursue their goals, as he has done numerous times this season.

“When it comes to the fact that we have two drivers in the quest for the World Championship, our philosophy and our approach will not change”, Stella said.

From a point of view, Oscar is unquestionably in good position to win the title. We have seen before in the history of Formula 1 that when you have this kind of situation, sometimes it’s the third one (in the championship going into the final race) that actually wins.

We saw it in 2007, 2010, and I believe, in 2010. And Oscar is fast, he deserves to be able to just realise his performance.

“We will let the drivers race each other in condition,” Verstappen’s driver said, “but what’s important for us is that we are in good condition to beat Verstappen.”

McLaren want to be fair to both drivers, but they also want to ensure one of their drivers wins the title.

During the course of the race, some intriguing puzzles might arise.

In the scenario mentioned, with Piastri and Mercedes ‘ Russell in whichever order, Verstappen would win the title, tied on points with Norris but with one more win.

However, Norris would be the champion if Piastri moved in and placed him third.

At the same time, it’s worth bearing in mind that Piastri winning the race could help Norris win the title, because in that scenario, Norris would need to finish only fifth, even if Verstappen was second.

Transparency and truthfulness are the foundation of McLaren’s entire culture. It’s also based on talking and making sure all possible scenarios are considered ahead of time.

What would the outcome of those discussions be, though? Would McLaren ask Piastri to do that? Yes without a doubt.

Would Piastri volunteer himself to do it, given how strongly both McLaren drivers have expressed their commitment to the team and their culture this season?

I know the answer, but I’m not sure, so I’m obviously not.

If he did not, it would risk exploding everything the drivers and team bosses have said and worked for all year.

However, judgment can erroneously in the stress of a title decisionr, for anyone, inside or outside the vehicle.

Let’s not forget that in one of the situations Stella cites – 2007 – something very similar happened.

Felipe Massa, Ferrari’s driver, was in command of the race in Brazil heading into the final pit stop, followed by Kimi Raikkonen, his teammate.

Had they finished in that order, and the rest of the places stayed the same, Lewis Hamilton would have taken the title for McLaren, tied on points with team-mate Fernando Alonso, but winning on results countback.

Would Red Bull’s best chance of securing the title for Max Verstappen be to promote Isack Hadjar to the second car for the last race of the season? Andrew

Red Bull are set to announce their 2026 driver line-up on Tuesday, and Hadjar, who has spent his rookie year at Racing Bulls, is expected to take the seat alongside Verstappen.

That implies, unquestionably, that Red Bull thinks Hadjar is a better driver than Liam Lawson or Yuki Tsunoda.

Tsunoda, by the way, is expected to be dropped, with Lawson partnered next season at Racing Bulls by Red Bull’s British-Swedish junior driver Arvid Lindblad.

However, it would be a lot to anticipate Hadjar joining the Red Bull team at the final race of the year and then immediately supporting Verstappen’s title push.

That would effectively mean expecting Hadjar to be at Verstappen’s level immediately in a strange car.

You could say they have nothing to lose, but why not at least try?

On the other hand, whether it would be good for Hadjar’s confidence to throw him into that situation with those expectations is another question entirely.

Which year will McLaren’s record-losing drivers’ championship with a dominant car reflect worse: 2007 or 2025, if Max Verstappen wins? – Nick

Verstappen’s exit as world champion could well be regarded as his greatest of his five world titles, if he wins.

Others might look at 2021, regardless of the controversy at the final race, or even 2024 and the way he managed not to lose any points to Lando Norris over the balance of the second half of the season.

That’s another matter of opinion, as does how it would affect McLaren.

The two seasons mentioned could not be more different.

In the wake of that and the spy-gate scandal, McLaren’s 2007 experienced significant internal disruption, with Hamilton and Alonso engaging in competitive bidding war with the team, the management failing to manage it, and Alonso’s relationship with his bosses crumbling.

This year, by contrast, has been one of remarkable harmony.

In a way that few teams have ever succeeded in between two team-mates competing for the title in modern F1, McLaren have made their best effort to foster a culture of fairness between the drivers.

Only at McLaren in 1984 with Niki Lauda and Alain Prost, and at Williams in 1996 with Damon Hill and Jacques Villeneuve, has something similar been pulled off. It typically becomes toxic.

Both Norris and Piastri have repeatedly said that they recognise the risks of losing the title to Verstappen in this scenario, and that if they do, so be it.

They claim that the team prefers one over the other because both have a chance to win the title and do so.

Some will see it as admirable. Some people view it as failing.

But it’s up to McLaren to run their team as they see fit, and for them to live with that.

Zak Brown, the CEO of McLaren Racing, and Stella, the team’s principal, are undoubtedly more comfortable doing it this way.

Of course, mistakes have been made along the way – particularly in Qatar on Sunday.

Would McLaren have double-stacked on lap seven in Qatar if Lando Norris had been leading? – Katherine

McLaren team boss Andrea Stella admitted that the idea of Norris losing time if they pitted both cars was in the mix at the time they made the decision not to stop during the early safety car period.

Stella continued, “It wasn’t the main reason not to stop both cars,” adding that “it was in the consideration.”

The main reason for the decision was that they erroneously believed not all other teams would pit. The biggest issue with McLaren in many ways is how and why they managed to make that assessment so mistaken.

In that context, one can only assume, given McLaren have repeatedly insisted this season that they are working on the basis of being fair to both drivers, that they would have made the same decision had their drivers been in the reverse order.

However, because that’s not what happened, it’s impossible to respond to this question with any certainty.

It’s interesting to note the likely difference to the championship picture, by the way, had they stopped and double-stacked.

Norris would most likely have fallen short of Carlos Sainz and Kimi Antonelli from Williams. Let’s assume everything else happened as it did anyway, in which case Norris would have finished fourth, just as he did.

However, Verstappen and Piastri would have had switched their finishing positions.

So Norris would still have 408 points, but Piastri would be nine points behind him, and Verstappen a further 10 behind Piastri.

Isn’t combining the roles of team principal and technical director at Aston Martin simply too much for one person to handle? Does concentrating too much power on one person not help the team as well? – Stephen

Adrian Newey has only given one media interview since his appointment as the Aston Martin team’s principal at the beginning of 2026.

He told Sky Sports in Qatar that he did not want anything to distract from the “priority of making the best car possible”.

Newey is a fiercely competitive, one-minded character. There is no reason to doubt that he will do his utmost to ensure he is not distracted from his main role.

The role can be created in any way that an organization chooses, and “team principal” means various things for various teams.

Aston Martin are likely to format the role in such a way that it fits Newey, and get other people to fill in the gaps left elsewhere.

It’s also worth mentioning that Andrea Stella’s role as the “technical team principal” and technical director at McLaren is not very different from what Zak Brown refers to as.

Stella leads the team in every way, including in engineering and design.

There is no technical director at McLaren. They have three, each responsible for different areas of the car – Peter Prodromou (aerodynamics), Neil Houldey (engineering) and Mark Temple (performance), in addition to chief designer Rob Marshall and chief operating officer Piers Thynne.

They all submit reports to Stella. Sounds rather similar to what Aston Martin propose under Newey, doesn’t it? And Stella’s media work, in my opinion, will be done much less.

As for the idea of too much power being concentrated into one person’s hands, all teams need a leader.

Owner Lawrence Stroll is the leader at Aston Martin. Beneath him, Newey will be in charge of the race team, including the design of the car.