Formula 1 title race: How McLaren mistakes helped Max Verstappen earn unlikely chance in battle with Lando Norris and Oscar Piastri

When Oscar Piastri's Dutch Grand Prix victory in late August left Max Verstappen 104 points off the Drivers' Championship lead, just about everyone in the Formula 1 paddock - including the Dutchman himself - assumed his hopes of winning a fifth successive title were over.

Verstappen was also 70 points back from Piastri's team-mate Lando Norris, who would have completed a dominant McLaren one-two in Zandvoort had it not been for a late technical failure that forced him to retire from the race.

Second place for Verstappen at his home race represented just his second podium during an eight-race winless streak, during which Christian Horner had been sacked as Red Bull team principal and replaced by Laurent Mekies.

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Not only did Verstappen have a huge deficit to overcome with nine rounds remaining, but his Red Bull team appeared to have no answer to McLaren's pace.

Fast forward three months, and Verstappen is heading into the final round of the season in Abu Dhabi with a legitimate chance of extending his title streak.

He has remarkably scored 108 more points than Piastri across the last eight rounds to sit ahead of the Australian, but trails leader Norris by 12 points going into this weekend's decider in the desert.

While there has been an impressive upturn in Red Bull's performance, without poor execution by McLaren during the run-in, the door would have already been shut on Verstappen's title aspirations.

How Red Bull got back on track

The season seemed to be spiralling out of control for Red Bull when Verstappen endured his worst weekend of the season - at least in terms of pace - at the final round before the summer break in Hungary, qualifying eighth and finishing the race in ninth.

Zandvoort represented a notable improvement following the break but Verstappen was still powerless to challenge the McLarens, albeit ultimately finishing second as a result of Norris' misfortune.

The turning point came as Red Bull brought a significant floor upgrade to the Italian Grand Prix, which would enable Verstappen to take pole position and victory in Monza before repeating the feat next time out in Azerbaijan.

Since the Monza upgrade, Verstappen has finished on the podium in eight successive races and claimed four victories.

Much of the toxicity that had plagued the team during the latter stages of Horner's tenure, which it should be said the long-time chief wasn't exclusively responsible for, seemed to dissipate under Mekies' leadership.

While they've still been unable to get many points out of Yuki Tsunoda on the other side of the garage, both Verstappen and the team have been superb during his late-season surge.

Baku blunders give Verstappen hope

Significant mistakes from McLaren and their drivers, Piastri in particular, had been few and far between over the first two thirds of the season.

It therefore came as a huge surprise when Piastri crashed out of both qualifying and the race on the streets of Baku.

Some theorised that the Australian's confidence or concentration could have been shaken by McLaren instructing him to give second place back to Norris a round earlier in Italy after the Brit had lost time during a slow pit stop.

Regardless of what caused the errors, they prompted a spectacular loss of form which would see him go six races without a podium.

Norris was guilty of not taking full advantage of Piastri's errors, as failing to ace a crucial final lap in qualifying left him seventh on the grid, before a couple of sloppy moments during the race meant he had failed to improve his position by the chequered flag.

Verstappen was clinical and made big gains on both McLarens to give himself a flicker of hope.

Piastri causes Austin collision after 'repercussions' fiasco

Tensions were heightened at McLaren after Norris barged past Piastri on the first lap of the Singapore Grand Prix to take third place, with their positions remaining unchanged at the end of the race.

Following complaints from Piastri on the radio at the time, McLaren bosses Zak Brown and Andrea Stella initially said they had viewed the contact as a racing incident, but two weeks later at the United States Grand Prix, Norris announced he would be facing repercussions enforced by the team.

It became apparent that the repercussions were to give Piastri priority in terms of choosing whether to run before or after Norris in the crucial closing stages of qualifying sessions.

The situation dominated the build-up to the Sprint weekend in Austin as the media tried to work out what that the unspecified 'repercussions' were.

They ultimately didn't last long as Piastri made a reckless move at the start of the Sprint race which took both him and Norris out, after which McLaren confirmed they were restoring a level-playing field.

Verstappen won the Sprint to make eight points on both McLaren drivers, but their first-corner exit also meant the team were unable to gather crucial data from the Sprint to inform their decisions for the rest of the weekend.

Norris qualified and finished the race in second, while Piastri could only manage fifth after qualifying sixth, which meant Verstappen was within 40 points of the lead with five rounds remaining.

Vegas double disqualification hands Verstappen lifeline

Norris had reduced what was a 34-point deficit to Piastri to 14 points, and the Brit then produced perhaps his two best weekends of the season to take control of the title battle.

He took pole and victory at the Mexico City Grand Prix to retake the championship lead for the first time since April, and then won the Sao Paulo Sprint as Piastri slightly unfortunately crashed out, before following it up with another pole and win to surge clear.

Despite delivering a thrilling comeback drive from a pit-lane start to finish third in Brazil, Verstappen trailed Norris by 49 points after the Interlagos weekend and said he could "forget about" winning the title with only the season-ending triple header remaining.

Norris appeared to have put himself right on the brink of sealing his maiden championship when he finished second behind Verstappen in second in Las Vegas, but the Dutchman's hopes would be dramatically reignited hours after the chequered flag when both McLarens were disqualified for having breached the limit for plank wear during the race.

Making 25 points on each of the McLarens drew Verstappen level with Piastri 24 points behind Norris with just two rounds remaining in Qatar and Abu Dhabi. The disqualification actually represented something of a reprieve for Piastri as he avoided losing six further points to Norris.

A setup misjudgement from McLaren led to extreme bouncing during the race, with the blunder all the more painful for Norris given the position of strength he had established.

Poor strategy call hurts Piastri as Norris wobbles

The Qatar Grand Prix offered Norris his first opportunity to seal a maiden title, but the weekend didn't go to plan for the Brit.

It was Piastri who finally rediscovered his form to take pole and victory in the last Sprint sessions of the season, with Norris having to settle for third in both, with Verstappen fourth.

Norris enabled Piastri to take pole for the main race as he blew his final flying lap in qualifying but was still reasonably well placed in second on the grid ahead of Verstappen. Too much wheel spin in the second phase of Norris' start allowed Verstappen to snatch second, but the key moment of the race was still to come.

With a one-off limit in place on how many laps each tyre set could be used for due to fears over possible punctures, each driver was going to be required to make two pit stops during the race so long as there weren't any red flags, which there weren't.

Therefore when a Safety Car was sent out after a midfield collision on lap seven after with exactly 50 laps remaining, almost all the strategists in the pit lane saw it as a no-brainer to take advantage of the minimised time loss and lock themselves into two 25-lap stints with another stop on lap 32 to take them to the end of the race.

McLaren chose not to stop either then-leader Piastri or Norris, and would later cite a desire to retain strategic flexibility and avoid the risk of coming out in traffic had some cars behind not pitted under the Safety Car.

Stella would admit concern over Norris being further penalised by having to wait in a possible double stack of the McLarens was a factor in the decision, but not the main one. Whatever the reason was, the lack of any further Safety Car interruptions during the race meant the decision turned out to be a bad one.

Piastri valiantly attempted to chase Verstappen down but had to settle for second, while an out of sorts Norris appeared destined to finish fifth until an error from Mercedes' Kimi Antonelli on the penultimate lap allowed the Brit through to fourth and to claim two additional crucial championship points.

That moment ensured Norris will remain a very clear favourite going into the final weekend of the season, with a 12-point lead over Verstappen while Piastri sits four points further back, but McLaren's autumn blunders have opened the door to what would rank as the greatest comeback in the sport's history.

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