How McLaren's Las Vegas GP disqualification blew open the title fight

Immediately after the Las Vegas GP, Lando Norris still had one hand on the 2025 Formula 1 world drivers’ championship despite losing out to Max Verstappen in Sin City.

That all changed after both Norris and team-mate – and championship rival – Oscar Piastri were disqualified when their cars failed technical checks.

The initial outcome of the Las Vegas GP – Verstappen first, Norris second, Piastri fourth – shifted the championship dynamic in Norris’s favour over Piastri, while Verstappen gained on them both. Verstappen had been 25 points behind Piastri and 49 behind Norris going into the race, and those margins were now 12 and 42. Norris’s advantage over Piastri grew from 24 points to 30.

But the disqualification means Verstappen is now level on points with Piastri – 366 each – while Norris has just 24 points in hand. That means there is all to play for in the final rounds.

Since Qatar is a sprint event, there are 58 points left on the table, 33 of which are available this coming weekend. The initial outcome of the Las Vegas GP meant Piastri needed to outscore Norris by five points in Qatar simply to remain in championship contention – he would then have had to win in Abu Dhabi, with Norris failing to score, to claim the championship.

That would have left them tied on points, but Piastri would take the title by dint of having won more grands prix.

Max Verstappen, Red Bull Racing

Photo by: Guido De Bortoli / LAT Images via Getty Images

But while disqualification in Las Vegas has made Piastri’s job of catching Norris slightly easier, it has also made Verstappen much less of a fringe contender.

Verstappen would have had to outscore Norris by 17 points in Qatar to stay in the game, then win in Abu Dhabi with Norris failing to score in order to be tied on points – and even then, he would have needed to win the GP in Qatar as well. That’s because he currently has six wins over this season to Norris’s seven, so a tie on points and wins would mean the title went to the driver with the greatest number of second places – Norris.

Had the Las Vegas result stood, Norris was highly likely to secure the world championship in Qatar, given that he was carrying a 30-point margin over Piastri and 42 over Verstappen into that weekend, after which only 25 more would be available.

Now, though, he only has a 24-point margin over both of them. To win the championship in Qatar, Norris will have to outscore both Piastri and Verstappen by two points. Under most of the permutations, a one-point margin would leave him open to the Abu Dhabi doomsday scenario.

While that remains unlikely, it’s not impossible. And while Abu Dhabi has been a dead-rubber round for the majority of its time on the calendar, it has played host to more than one unusual outcome – not just 2021, but also 2010, where Sebastian Vettel won the title despite not having led the world championship until that point.

So in the words of Dame Shirley Bassey, who made her US stage debut in Las Vegas, the events in Sin City might set up a little bit of history repeating…