Lando Norris faces his moment of reckoning in Qatar

Dubai: The equation appeared so straightforward ahead of the Las Vegas Grand Prix last weekend.

Starting from pole, McLaren’s Lando Norris just needed to keep his head down and go into Qatar this weekend with virtually unassailable leads over both teammate Oscar Piastri and currently the seemingly bigger threat in Red Bull’s four-time Formula 1 world champion Max Verstappen.

Instead, the British driver attempted a botched-up manoeuvre off the line in Las Vegas, trying to cut off Verstappen after a relatively slower start, and ended up going off track and being passed by both the Red Bull driver and Mercedes’ George Russell. And although he eventually finished second behind Verstappen which would still have given him a 42-point cushion over the Dutchman and a 30-point lead over the fast-fading Piastri, the post-race disqualifications meant Norris ended up carrying just a 24-point lead over both into Qatar with 58 points still to play for.

Spiced up title race

And while it is not as bad as it looks — he just needs to finish 2 points ahead of both his rivals to win his maiden drivers’ title in Qatar — Verstappen’s record at the Lusail International Circuit suggests Norris can’t let his guard down even for a split second in a sport where a hundredth of a second can be the difference between a title and a heartbreak.

For Verstappen, whose second-half revival has truly spiced up the title race, it will be more than just going for a hat-trick of wins in Qatar. He needs to win the sprint race too and hope Norris is nowhere close to him in the classifications. But he will know, better than most, that even with luck on his side, he is unlikely to overhaul the 24-point deficit. Norris, on the other hand, has the simplest task and least reason to take risks as they go wheel to wheel in Saturday’s sprint race and Sunday’s floodlit Grand Prix.

The 26-year-old Briton has, nevertheless, seen Verstappen wipe out a 104-points gap behind then-leader Piastri since the start of September with a phenomenal surge of form that has left McLaren fans biting their nails and considering the wisdom of the team’s decision to allow their drivers to fight each other.

“We’re not going to close the door unless it is closed by mathematics,” team boss Andrea Stella said earlier this year, ruling out any ‘team orders’ scenario in support of Piastri or Norris.

Inexplicable drop

Stella has been involved before himself, having been Kimi Raikkonen’s race engineer at Ferrari in 2007, when the Finn took the title ahead of the warring McLaren pair Fernando Alonso and Lewis Hamilton by overhauling a 17-point gap with two races left.

He was also Alonso’s engineer at Ferrari in 2010 when the two-time champion’s strategy failed at the final race and allowed Sebastian Vettel, 15 points adrift and third at the start, to steal the title for Red Bull.

In such a scenario, even Piastri cannot be ruled out despite his inexplicable drop in performance. Returning to circuits and conditions that may help him, he can yet deliver a performance that lifts him back into serious contention on a fast and flowing circuit where Pirelli have insisted on two pit-stops in the race due to heavy tyre-wear.

Each set of tyres will be limited to 25 laps, a cap that is likely to produce thrills and unexpected tactics and put a premium on pit-wall decision-making in the heat of competition.

But amid the drama that is likely to unfold, all Norris needs to do is hold his nerve and hope that the old maxim — what happens in Vegas stays in Vegas — holds true.