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Where F1 title may be won and lost in three-way fight
The Formula 1 drivers' championship will be decided in a three-way showdown that takes place this weekend on Abu Dhabi's Yas Marina circuit.
Lando Norris leads Red Bull's Max Verstappen by 12 points and McLaren team-mate Oscar Piastri by 16 as they head to a track that has hosted a number of dramatic climaxes in the past.
This weekend has all the ingredients to be another.
Norris, with his significant points advantage, goes into the weekend as an on-paper favourite.
But Verstappen has won five of the eight races before Abu Dhabi and is in a far simpler position than two drivers operating out of the same McLaren garage.
The McLaren has been the fastest car on average over the season. It has a significant advantage on average qualifying pace - 0.274 seconds over the season, and 0.203secs over the past eight races.
But wins are split evenly between all three drivers this year - Norris, Verstappen and Piastri all have seven each. The other two grand prix victories have been taken by Mercedes' George Russell.
McLaren have dominated the constructors' championship, which they clinched at the Singapore Grand Prix on the first weekend in October, with six races remaining.
But that is reflection of having two competitive drivers in a consistently race-winning car. No other team has had the luxury of those two factors together.
Verstappen, by contrast, has scored more than 92% of all his team's points this year - team-mate Yuki Tsunoda has been nowhere near him and of no help whatsoever in the Dutchman's title campaign, and has been dropped by Red Bull for next season as a result.
Competitiveness has ebbed and flowed through the season, and each car has specific strengths.
Verstappen won the Qatar Grand Prix last weekend only because of McLaren's strategy error. Otherwise, that track's long-duration medium- and high-speed corners were perfect McLaren territory.
Abu Dhabi also has some long corners - especially the hairpin on to the first long straight and the long Turn Nine at the end of the second main straight.
But the McLaren is not at its best in the sort of short-duration, 90-degree corners that comprise the final sector around the marina and hotel, or when braking into chicanes.
And the Red Bull has the best straight-line speed.
So, in terms of track characteristics, the fight looks finely balanced.
McLaren have taken pole position at the past four races. Over the season, Norris and Verstappen are tied on seven poles each, with Piastri scoring six.
Verstappen has won four times in Abu Dhabi, taking every race victory from 2020-23.
But his win in 2021 was extremely controversial - that was the title showdown with Lewis Hamilton's Mercedes, where Verstappen won only after the then-race director made up the rules during a late safety-car period.
It's also not a fair comparison between the three drivers.
For a start, this is only Piastri's third season in F1. Norris has been in F1 since 2019 and Verstappen since 2015.
But Norris did not have an even vaguely competitive car until 2023, whereas Verstappen has been winning races on and off since 2016.
And Norris was dominant on his way to victory in Abu Dhabi last year.
Competitiveness has fluctuated through the season, between both drivers and teams.
In the first half of the season, the Red Bull was competitive with the McLaren only on circuits with a predominance of high-speed corners, such as Japan, Saudi Arabia and Imola.
Piastri was the stronger McLaren driver on balance over the first 14 races of the season, while Norris struggled with certain elements of the car's behaviour.
But Norris has come on strong since the summer break, overhauling what had been a 34-point lead for Piastri at the end of August.
Red Bull had a slump in form through the summer, by the end of which Verstappen was 104 points off the championship lead.
But tweaks to their car for the Italian Grand Prix at the beginning of September transformed their season, and Verstappen went on a run of three wins and a second place in four races through September and October.
In the past two races, Verstappen was the stronger in Las Vegas and McLaren in Qatar. But Abu Dhabi is a very different track from both of those.
McLaren's task is the more complicated. They have two drivers in contention and have pledged to allow them both to compete fairly until one is no longer in contention for the championship.
But the team's clear stated goal is for one of their drivers to win the title - and they don't mind which. So don't rule out team tactics of one kind or another at McLaren.
For example, if Verstappen is winning and Piastri in the top three with Norris fourth, that would make the Dutchman champion. But if Piastri dropped back to let Norris into the top three, Norris would win the title.
In those circumstances, it would be expected for McLaren to ask Piastri to aid Norris - but only at such a point when it's clear the Australian's hopes were over.
At Red Bull, Verstappen is on his own. Except, that is, if a McLaren finds itself somehow behind one of the other three Red Bull-owned cars - Tsunoda and the two Racing Bulls of Isack Hadjar and Liam Lawson.
If that's the case, expect them to make themselves as hard as possible to pass - as Sergio Perez did to Hamilton in 2021, ultimately playing a decisive role in how the race played out.
The pressure is certainly greater on Norris than anyone else.
All year, McLaren have looked like the team who will deliver the drivers' title, and he is the man leading the championship.
At the same time, this is his first chance to win the title, and McLaren's first drivers' title chance since Hamilton won in 2008.
Yes, Hamilton was in mathematical contention in 2010, but 24 points behind with only 25 available, so not really in the picture.
In addition, McLaren have been fundamentally restructured since then, and while team principal Andrea Stella has been involved in title fights previously - working with Michael Schumacher, Kimi Raikkonen and Fernando Alonso - most of the team have not.
Their relative rawness has shown at times this year, especially in Qatar, when they were the only team not to take the opportunity to pit under a safety car, and lost the win as a result.
There will likely have been some soul-searching and in-depth analysis in the past days as a consequence. Some anxiety and nervousness would be understandable.
Red Bull and Verstappen, meanwhile, are fully versed in this situation. They have won the past four drivers' titles and are a ruthless, finely honed winning machine.
And as a team and driver who have done it before, and in addition did not expect to be in this situation, the pressure is off.
Verstappen has repeatedly said "it won't change my life" whether he wins or not.
After Qatar, he said: "It shows everything is possible. We have nothing to lose so I just go there and try to maximise the car and hope we can be a little bit more competitive than here but we'll see."
Source: BBC
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