Sweeping across the Gulf to Abu Dhabi, host of Formula One’s season finale for 12 consecutive years, Lando Norris really should be home and dry by now. Without those Las Vegas disqualifications a fortnight ago, Max Verstappen would be out of the running. Without last week’s mistakes in Qatar, McLaren could rest easy in the knowledge that the drivers’ champion would, at the very least, be donning papaya colours. Yet here we are; on we go.
This weekend’s three-way fight in the desert is the first F1 championship-decider involving more than two drivers for 15 years. Back then, a four-way hammer-and-tong concluded with a surprise champion at the chequered flag: Sebastian Vettel’s first of four triumphs, and other shock winners before him on the final day, are telling case studies for Sunday’s final curtain call.
It goes some way in explaining why Verstappen and Oscar Piastri should not give up the ghost just yet. Twelve and 16-point deficits respectively are significant obstacles to overcome, for sure, and Norris holds most of the cards. A podium is all the 26-year-old from Somerset needs and, in the fastest car on the grid, it should be something of a banker.
But history tells us that unfathomable events occur on judgement day. It is why Norris would be well-advised to glance ominously over his shoulder, while every permutation should be memorised to a tee on a McLaren pit-wall under immense scrutiny, following the incorrect call in Qatar.
The irony of McLaren’s current predicament involving team orders – and the moral dilemma remains of whether Piastri would help Norris should it be required on Sunday – is that one-man team Red Bull were on the flip side of the coin back in 2010. On the eve of their first world championship, Red Bull’s late team owner Dietrich Mateschitz implored that “interference with the drivers would never be a possibility”, with Mark Webber (Piastri’s current manager, no less) entering the Abu Dhabi weekend seven points ahead of teammate Vettel.
Yet the championship leader was a certain Fernando Alonso, then 29 years young, racing for Ferrari. He led Webber by eight points and Vettel by 15 points, with Lewis Hamilton a long shot, 24 points adrift. Alonso needed second or first to guarantee the title – a prophecy which would have been in place for Norris on Sunday, had Kimi Antonelli held position in the final laps of the last race.
Qualifying proved key – as it often is around the Yas Marina Circuit, unfortunately not the most thrilling track for racing – with Vettel claiming a lights-to-flag victory from pole. Alonso started in third but lost a spot at the start and was then powerless after Ferrari’s questionable decision to pit left him frustratingly behind a string of midfield cars.
Ferrari botching a strategy call – some things really do never change.
Vettel was unaware of the situation as he crossed the line, before being informed of his favourable fate, leading the championship for the first time all season at the decisive juncture. A situation which looked remote at best at the start of the weekend had come up trumps for the German, while seventh-placed Alonso was left to rue a race which saw nothing fall his way. Ferrari have not won a drivers’ world championship since.
Three years earlier, however, the Scuderia launched their own improbable fightback with Kimi Raikkonen and, in a full circle moment previously scribed in these pages, current McLaren team principal Andrea Stella in scarlet red as racing director. History looked firmly in the making when McLaren’s Hamilton won the Japanese Grand Prix in Fuji with two races left. Seventeen points clear of the Finn, under the old point-scoring system, the boy from Stevenage was set to become the sport’s first rookie champion.
But then Hamilton floundered, sliding off track in the pit-lane in China to hand Raikkonen an opening, before a gearbox issue pushed him to the back of the pack at the season finale in Brazil. Hamilton’s teammate Alonso, in one of F1’s most vociferous partnerships, could not stake a claim at the front either. Two victories to finish the season were enough for Raikkonen to win the title.
It is a situation akin to Verstappen this year, who could seal the title with a third win in a row this weekend. The takeaway is obvious: end-of-season momentum counts for a great deal.
But perhaps the most relatable title battle to the present day took place back in 1986, with McLaren great Alain Prost the Verstappen-like figure of the season up against two Williams drivers – Nigel Mansell and Nelson Piquet – in the quickest car. By the season finale taking place on the streets of Adelaide, Mansell and Piquet had secured the top two spots on the grid. Prost was back in fourth.
Yet “Le Professeur”, as Prost was known, experienced his fair share of lady luck to win the championship. The most memorable moment was Mansell’s tyre blowout on the 200mph Brabham straight, 19 laps from the end, when a podium was all he needed for his first title. Murray Walker, on commentary for the BBC, exclaimed: “And look at that! And colossally that’s Mansell!”
Williams pitted Piquet, nervous of a repeat, and though the Brazilian closed in on race leader Prost towards the end, the Frenchman held his nerve to claim the ultimate gong.
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Different eras, of course, but no less relevant this weekend. The primary takeaway: what may seem a foregone conclusion often fails to materialise. In an alternative reality, seven-time world champion Hamilton could have 10 titles in his cabinet, if you include other title near-misses on the final day in 2016 and 2021.
Of course, that contentious finale four years ago (the last time the drivers’ title made it to the final day) sticks out for then-race director Michael Masi succumbing to the pressure of the occasion with a host of incorrect decisions. One simply hopes that this time around, the season’s champion is determined by the action out on track and engineers on the pit-wall, not the stewards in race control.
Whichever way it falls, history tells us that the final furlong has rarely been straightforward. Curveballs will be thrown; how Norris bats them away will decide his fate on Sunday night.
The Abu Dhabi Grand Prix takes place at 1pm (GMT) on Sunday. Follow The Independent for live coverage on the ground throughout the race weekend.
