Nov.30 (GMM) Oscar Piastri has revived his fading title hopes with sprint victory and pole position in Qatar, cutting Lando Norris’ championship lead to 22 points heading into Sunday’s grand prix.
However, if Norris wins from P3, he is world champion. Otherwise, the battle goes to Abu Dhabi next weekend.
Max Verstappen repeatedly feigned attacks on Norris in the sprint but the Briton insisted: “I didn’t see him.”
Dr Helmut Marko doesn’t buy it.
“When you know Max is nearby, most of the drivers get nervous,” said the Red Bull advisor. “It’s good for us that Piastri is ahead and not Norris.”
McLaren CEO Zak Brown compared Verstappen to a horror-movie villain. “He’s on the level of the very best. We have to ignore him, but that’s easier said than done.”
Earlier in Qatar, Verstappen had spiced up the psychological war by claiming he would have “easily” won the title already in an orange car.
Norris fired back: “Max is welcome to say everything he wants – he’s achieved an incredible amount. But there are also a lot of things he doesn’t have much of a clue about.
“Red Bull talk nonsense a lot of the time. Maybe he would have done – but he hasn’t so far, and he keeps trying.”
Meanwhile, overtaking looks nearly impossible at Lusail, with a realistic Verstappen observing: “If I don’t pass him (Norris) in turn 1, then he scores more points than me.”
Piastri, relieved to be competitive again, said: “Winning is a lot more fun than whatever the hell happened the last four or five races.”
Pirelli had already imposed a strict 25-lap limit per set before travelling to Qatar, and has now revealed worrying inspection findings.
Pirelli engineer Simone Berra revealed: “We found deep cuts in numerous tyres – the stones here seem sharper than on other circuits. Some cuts reached the core structure.”
Mario Isola added: “We saw some tyres 100 percent worn due to graining. That’s why we reduced the maximum distance to 25 laps.”
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