Lando Norris is in the ascendency and one of his closest Formula 1 title challengers seems to have given up, though the other continues to believe a comeback is possible
Lando Norris leads the Formula 1 championship heading into Sunday’s Sao Paulo Grand Prix. Perhaps more pertinently, of the three contenders still in the hunt for the title this year, he is the one who is bang in form.
His team-mate, Oscar Piastri, looked for a long time to be in control of the drivers’ championship. The Australian overcame a shaky start to the year by taking the lead after victory in the fifth round of the season, the Saudi Arabian Grand Prix back in April, and had his nose in front of Norris for six months.
But the Australian has not won a race since August, a barren run which has seen his qualifying form desert him and mistakes that he had never before looked likely to make creep in. Similarly devoid of momentum is Max Verstappen, who finished second or higher in five consecutive Grands Prix after the summer break, winning three of them, to catapult himself back into contention.
A scrappy weekend in Mexico two weeks ago, however, left the Red Bull racer admitting the rest of the year needed to be “perfect” if he was going to complete the comeback. That has not been the case, and it is not over-exaggerating to describe his weekend in Brazil so far as a disaster.
He qualified only sixth in the Sprint, unhappy with his car, managing to progress to fourth in Saturday’s short-form race. But the real damage was done in qualifying for the main Grand Prix a few hours later, where he suffered his first Q1 exit for more than four years. His father Jos, having watched his son qualify 16th, was caught by TV cameras storming out of the Red Bull team garage.
Verstappen won this race from 17th in 2024, but that was in chaotic weather conditions and with a much more competitive Red Bull car. Barring another even more unlikely comeback, he will lose a lot of ground to Norris and admitted after qualifying: “I can forget about [the title]. Yes, for sure.”
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Things are not quite so bleak for Piastri, who is much closer to Norris and has far less ground to make up on Sunday, having qualified fourth. Looking at the big picture, and despite his underwhelming recent form, the 24-year-old insists he can still get himself back ahead of his McLaren team-mate before the chequered flag in next month’s Abu Dhabi season finale.
He said: “I think in Austin and Mexico there were clearly some things to learn and just some things that I wasn’t very naturally comfortable with that I had to adapt to. This weekend, certainly [Friday], things felt much more normal.
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“From the first lap of practice I felt comfortable, the lap time was coming easily. Today [Saturday] was a little bit more tricky in terms of the conditions and just trying to get everything out of it, but I don’t think there’s been the same issues this weekend.
“I’ve still got the belief that I can go out and win races and win the championship but obviously things are not coming as easy as I’d like at the moment.”
