It’s a narrow path to victory, but this is why Oscar Piastri can still win the Formula 1 world title

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Oscar Piastri’s quest to become Australia’s third Formula 1 world champion reaches its last lap at the 2025 season finale in Abu Dhabi this weekend, with the 24-year-old aiming to join Sir Jack Brabham and Alan Jones as Australian winners.

For the first time since 2010, the final round of the season will be a three-way title showdown, with Piastri’s McLaren teammate Lando Norris (408 points), reigning four-time world champion Max Verstappen (396) and Piastri (392) all in contention with 25 points available for the winner at Yas Marina.

Oscar Piastri can still win the title. But it’s a narrow path to victory.

Piastri, whose breakout third F1 campaign has produced seven wins and six pole positions, has led the championship after 15 of 23 rounds.

But a prolonged stumble after he enjoyed a 34-point lead following the Dutch Grand Prix in August – allied to Norris’ best run of the year and Verstappen storming back from a 104-point deficit in eight rounds – has him as the underdog in a season set for its denouement over 58 laps.

Who has the form, momentum, and pedigree in Abu Dhabi? What’s at stake for the winner and losers? And why do a pair of previous title deciders show that a Piastri championship isn’t out of the question?

How Norris can win

Norris, whose fourth place in Qatar last weekend came after a calamitous McLaren decision to not pit under safety car conditions cost him a podium and Piastri almost certain victory, will win the title no matter what Verstappen or Piastri do if he finishes on the podium.

The 26-year-old can also win the title if he finishes fourth or fifth – if Verstappen doesn’t win. If he finishes sixth or seventh, and neither Verstappen or Piastri wins, Norris takes the title.

Even if Norris finishes outside the top 10, or doesn’t finish the race, he can still be champion provided Verstappen finishes fourth or lower, and Piastri third or lower.

How Verstappen can win

Verstappen has scored 191 points to the 216 combined by Norris and Piastri since round 15, and has won five of the past eight grands prix. The 28-year-old Dutchman’s simplest road to the title is to win with Norris fourth or worse.

But Verstappen can also win the championship if he finishes second with Norris eighth or lower if Piastri doesn’t win, and by finishing third if Norris is ninth or lower and Piastri doesn’t win.

How Piastri can win

Piastri’s path is narrower. If he wins in Abu Dhabi, Piastri will be champion if Norris is sixth or lower, no matter where Verstappen finishes. The Australian will also be crowned champion if he finishes second and Norris is 10th or lower, and Verstappen fourth or lower.

Abu Dhabi form guide

In Abu Dhabi, Verstappen (four wins) is the second-most successful driver in the circuit’s 16-year tenure behind Lewis Hamilton (five), while Norris won from pole at Yas Marina last season after never finishing better than fifth in five previous visits.

In just his third season, Piastri’s Abu Dhabi resume is sparse; he finished sixth as a rookie in 2023, and recovered from the back to 10th last season after he was spun at the first corner by Verstappen, who was penalised for causing the collision.

Qualifying is critical at Yas Marina; the past 10 pole-sitters have won in Abu Dhabi, with Hamilton in 2014 the most recent driver to win who didn’t start first.

Mark Webber and Red Bull teammate Sebastian Vettel in 2010.

Why Piastri can be optimistic

While Piastri has the weakest statistical case for winning the title (from third place), the most recent three-way championship decider shows that anything is possible, as a member of his inner circle knows painfully well.

In 2010, the first year of F1’s current points format allocating 25 points for the winner, Red Bull Racing’s Sebastian Vettel came to Abu Dhabi in third place and 15 points off the championship lead, but won the race and the title when series leader Fernando Alonso (Ferrari) and Mark Webber (Red Bull) – now Piastri’s manager – were jumped by the German after they finished just seventh and eighth, Vettel securing the first of four consecutive titles by four points.

More optimism for Piastri? Ferrari’s Kimi Raikkonen was third entering the 2007 finale in Brazil, behind McLaren pair Hamilton and Alonso, but won the title by a single point after winning the race when he was seven points down on Hamilton under F1’s old points allocation that awarded 10 points for the winner; under today’s system, Raikkonen was the equivalent of 18 points behind, further than Piastri this weekend.

What’s at stake?

A Verstappen title would be the crowning glory of his 11-year career, given the triple-digit deficit the Dutchman faced two-thirds of the way through the season.

The Red Bull driver’s win in Qatar was the 70th of his career – only Hamilton (105) and Michael Schumacher (91) have more – and a fifth consecutive crown would make him just the second driver to achieve that feat behind Schumacher, who reigned for Ferrari from 2000-04 (after also winning back-to-back crowns for Benetton in 1994-95).

Norris will become the 11th British driver to become champion if he converts, and the first McLaren champion since Hamilton in 2008, while a 13th title for a McLaren driver would see the British team narrow the gap to Ferrari (15, but none since 2007).

A Piastri title would be Australia’s first for 45 years since Jones won for Williams, while he would surpass the career-best seasons of Webber (third in 2010, 2011 and 2013) and Daniel Ricciardo (third in 2014 and 2016) if he’s runner-up or better.

Alan Jones (right) after winning the United States Grand Prix West in 1981.

Three big unknowns

Wildcards: Can a driver for another team – likely Mercedes, perhaps Ferrari – get into the mix? Mercedes’ George Russell (fourth in the championship with two victories) seems the most likely, and the British driver has an Abu Dhabi podium (third in 2023) on his CV. Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc has finished second, second and third in the past three Abu Dhabi Grands Prix, but Ferrari’s late-season slump has dropped the team to fourth in the constructors’ standings.

Verstappen’s tactics: Might Verstappen, who needs to win and have Norris finish off the podium, get to the lead and back up the pack to put Norris under attack from behind at a track where passing can be difficult and the pace managed by the leader? It’s not unprecedented for an Abu Dhabi championship decider; in 2016, Hamilton took the lead but slowed the pace dramatically to have Mercedes teammate Nico Rosberg under siege from the rest before Rosberg eventually finished second and won the title.

McLaren drivers Lando Norris and Oscar Piastri.

McLaren’s team orders: In a situation where Verstappen is leading with Piastri third and Norris fourth – a scenario that would give Verstappen the title – would McLaren ask Piastri to move aside, making a mockery of its ethos to maintain fairness between its drivers through its hotly debated “papaya rules”? Would Piastri acquiesce to allow Norris to win a title that, for large parts of 2025, looked set to be his? Would Norris demand to be let past, knowing how that would feed into the suggestion that the team would prefer he, rather than Piastri, win the title – or would the end justify the means?

The verdict

Verstappen has momentum and pedigree, Norris the points advantage and Piastri the pace from Qatar that was a hallmark of his early-season surge. Remember, after his win in Saudi Arabia in round four, he led the standings for the next six months.

As always in Abu Dhabi, qualifying will carry outsized importance, and a Norris/Verstappen front row – given that the former has everything to lose and the latter nothing – will make the 194-metre run from pole position to the braking point for the left-handed first corner the most tense opening seconds of any race this season.

Norris is likely to be more tentative in battle than the combative Verstappen, while Piastri’s race-controlling pace is such that, of the seven grands prix he’s won this season, he’s spent at least 85 per cent of five of them in the lead.

If Piastri gets to the front, he’s every chance to check out as he did in Qatar, with what happens behind him – or on the McLaren pit wall – the deciding factor in how this compelling season ends.

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