F1 set for final-race showdown as Verstappen exploits McLaren blunder

DOHA, Qatar, December 2 ------ The three-way F1 title fight will go down to the last race of the season after Max Verstappen took full advantage of a McLaren blunder to win the Qatar Grand Prix. The Red Bull driver made an immediate pit stop during an early safety car intervention, when McLaren duo Oscar Piastri and Lando Norris stayed out, and he capitalized by driving with cool precision to triumph in convincing style. His win lifted him into second place in the title race with 396 points, 12 behind championship leader Norris, who finished fourth.

Pole-sitter Piastri slipped to third in the standings but trimmed his deficit to Norris to 16 points with one race remaining in Abu Dhabi next Sunday, where Verstappen has won four times in the last five years. "It's all possible," said Verstappen, who is chasing a fifth successive world title.

Britain's Norris still has his nose in front heading to Abu Dhabi and will take the title with a podium finish, no matter what his rivals do. Dutchman Verstappen came home 7.995 seconds ahead of Piastri with Carlos Sainz third for Williams, ahead of Norris and the Mercedes pair of Kimi Antonelli and George Russell. It was Verstappen's seventh win of the season, his third in succession in Qatar and 70th of his career. "That was an incredible race for us," said Verstappen, who had written off his title hopes at the end of August before embarking on a sequence of results that turned a 104-point deficit to Piastri into a four-point advantage.

Source: news.abs-cbn.com