- F1
How Lando Norris can secure his first F1 Drivers’ Championship in the Qatar Grand Prix
by Mark SchofieldNov 29, 2025, 3:13 PM UTC
Photo by Clive Rose/Getty Images
Mark Schofield is a former college quarterback and attorney covering the NFL and F1.Oscar Piastri took the victory — and the eight points — in the F1 Sprint race at the Qatar Grand Prix.
But with his third-place finish, Lando Norris can still clinch his first Drivers’ Championship tomorrow in the Qatar Grand Prix.
Piastri took the win ahead of George Russell and Norris, while fellow Drivers’ Championship contender Max Verstappen picked up two places on the track to finish fourth after starting sixth. Here is how the three title contenders now sit in the standings following those results:
Norris: 396 pointsPiastri: 374 pointsVerstappen: 371 points
Norris now has a 22-point lead over Piastri (down from 24 points before the F1 Sprint race) and a 25-point lead over Verstappen, up one point from before the F1 Sprint race.
clHere are the full Drivers’ Championship standings following the F1 Sprint race, as well as a look at how Norris can lcinch a title tomorrow.
Updated Drivers’ Championship standings
Here are the updated F1 Drivers’ Championship standings based on the provisional results from the F1 Sprint race at the Qatar Grand Prix:
Position
Driver
Team
Points
Change
1Lando NorrisMcLaren396--2Oscar PiastriMcLaren374--3Max VerstappenRed Bull371--4George RussellMercedes301--5Charles LeclercFerrari226--6Lewis HamiltonFerrari152--7Kimi AntonelliMercedes140--8Alexander AlbonWilliams73--9Isack HadjarVCARB51--10Nico HülkenbergSauber49--11Carlos Sainz Jr.Williams49--12Fernando AlonsoAston Martin42+113Oliver BearmanHaas41-114Liam LawsonVCARB36--16Esteban OconHaas32--15Lance StrollAston Martin32--17Yuki TsunodaRed Bull32--18Pierre GaslyAlpine22--19Gabriel BortoletoSauber19--20Franco ColapintoAlpine0--21Jack DoohanAlpine0--There was not much movement in the total standings following the F1 Sprint race at the Qatar Grand Prix. Fernando Alonso did move ahead of Oliver Bearman in the standings thanks to the two points he secured with a seventh-place finish. Carlos Sainz Jr. also pulled level with Nico Hülkenberg on points, but the Sauber driver still has a tiebreaker edge based on a pair of seventh-place finishes.
How Norris can clinch a title in Qatar
As outlined above, Norris can clinch his first Drivers’ Championship tomorrow in the Qatar Grand Prix.
Following tomorrow, the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix is the only race left on the schedule, with 25 points available to the winner. To clinch the title Norris needs a lead of 26 points over his rivals (to avoid tiebreaker scenarios) or 25 points provided any potential tiebreakers will break in his favor. More on those in a moment.
As a reminder, here is the state of play among the three title contenders:
Norris: 396 pointsPiastri: 374 pointsVerstappen: 371 points
Norris now has a 22-point lead over Piastri (down from 24 points before the F1 Sprint race) and a 25-point lead over Verstappen, up one point from before the F1 Sprint race.
The “simplest” path to a title for Norris — simple being a relative term in Formula 1 — is with a win in the Qatar Grand Prix. That would give Norris the full 25 points on offer, seven more than the second-place finisher and ten more than the third-place finisher. So if, for example, Norris were to win ahead of Piastri in P2, Norris would move to 421 points and Piastri would move to 392 points.
With an advantage of 29 points, Norris would clinch the title as Piastri could not catch him.
Norris can clinch the title with a second-place finish, but it gets a little more complicated. If he finishes second, he would pick up 18 points to move to 414 points on the season. If either Piastri or Verstappen finish head of him, however, he could not clinch a title.
But assuming for the moment George Russell or another rival takes the win, and Norris finishes second, he would clinch the title provided neither Piastri nor Verstappen joined him on the podium with a P3. If Norris takes P2 in the Qatar Grand Prix and moves to 414 points, a third-place finish from Piastri would move him to 389 points.
That would put Piastri 25 points behind Norris. And in a world where neither Norris nor Piastri wins the Qatar Grand Prix tomorrow, they would head to Abu Dhabi with each of them having won seven grands prix. Here is where the tiebreakers start to come into play, as Grand Prix wins are the first tiebreaker.
That means that if Piastri won the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix — and Norris did not score a point — they would each finish the season with 414 points. But Piastri would now have eight Grand Prix wins, one more than Norris, and he would clinch the tiebreaker, and the title.
There are additional scenarios where Norris can win, but the easiest way to describe them is this way: If Norris outscores Piastri by four points, and finishes ahead of Verstappen, he clinches the title. If, somehow, both Piastri and Verstappen finish outside the points, Norris just needs to finish down in eighth place (picking up four points) to clinch a title.
Flipping the script for a moment, if Norris fails to score a point, Piastri can retake the Drivers’ Championship lead with a win in the Qatar Grand Prix.
As for Verstappen, he needs to finish ahead of Norris to keep his championship hopes alive.
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