Is Lando Norris going to choke?

Entering this weekend needing only a podium finish, Lando Norris should win the F1 2025 title at the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix.

Yet his edgy, nervy performance in Qatar will give Max Verstappen and Oscar Piastri all the encouragement they need to put the McLaren man through a stress test. How will this race – and the title – be won and lost?

Lando Norris *should* win the title in Abu Dhabi, but…

A version of this article originally appeared in PlanetF1.com’s conclusions from the 2025 Qatar Grand Prix

The biggest surprise of this season?

Easy: that Oscar Piastri, not Lando Norris, was the McLaren driver to implode when the title race began to heat up.

Everything we knew about both drivers up until the halfway point of this season – Norris’s suspect temperament stretching all the way back to Russia 2021, Piastri’s three-heartbeats-per-lap, Verstappen-esque coolness – suggested only one driver would find the going tough when the tough got going in 2025.

Yet there was Piastri effectively going missing and without a podium for six straight races between Azerbaijan and Las Vegas.

As noted in PlanetF1.com’s conclusions from the Singapore Grand Prix, it was Norris’s retirement at Zandvoort that saw the dynamic between the McLaren drivers change.

All of a sudden Lando had nothing to lose, whereas Piastri – now with a 34-point lead to protect – had everything to lose.

Recap: How the F1 2025 title race has developed

👉 Qatar GP conclusions: Mindless McLaren, Piastri turns Norris tables, Hamilton bombshell?

👉 Las Vegas GP conclusions: Max spooks Norris, McLaren DSQ silver lining, Hamilton’s Ferrari regret?

As the weeks have passed, the more it appears that Piastri’s late-season slump arrived in two separate stages.

First came the initial psychological wave at Baku/Singapore when the lingering bitterness of having to swap places with Norris at Monza seeped into both his driving and his demeanour.

Then came the secondary, technical wave between Austin and Vegas, where the limitations of Piastri’s driving style – and, potentially, his heavily data-led approach – revealed itself on low-grip surfaces.

Back on a high-grip circuit in Qatar last weekend, the McLaren a joy to drive through all those high- and medium-speed corners, Piastri was reborn.

And Norris?

The tables have turned again – the natural order restored, you might say – now he is the one with something to lose.

With the title now close enough to touch, he shrunk in size in Qatar and regressed back to the shaky, indecisive driver most would have recognised before his wins in Mexico and Brazil made him the clear favourite for the championship.

His painful attempts at passing Andrea Kimi Antonelli’s Mercedes were reminiscent of his tentative performance in Baku, where it seemed Norris was totally oblivious to the scale of the opportunity opening up before him in the aftermath of Piastri’s early accident.

That Norris made such hard work of Qatar – lest we forget his troubled laps in qualifying too – should give Verstappen and Piastri all the encouragement they need ahead of Abu Dhabi.

Often world champions in waiting are subjected to one last examination of their title-winning credentials before ascending to the throne.

Think, for instance, how Nico Rosberg, another driver prone to mistakes under pressure, was put through the wringer by Lewis Hamilton in the final laps of the 2016 season as the championship dangled tantalisingly before his eyes.

A similar stress test – 58 more laps spent on the rack – awaits Norris this weekend.

If Max and Oscar can keep the pressure high, and push and prod Lando into an uncomfortable place, the chances are that he will finally crack.

Just a little bit later than so many expected.

How the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix could unfold

There are two ways Lando Norris could win the title in Abu Dhabi: the easy way or the hard way.

The easy way would be to repeat what he did at this race last year, dominating from pole position and storming to the title as though he and McLaren never had anything to worry about.

A performance as commanding as 2024, under twice the pressure, would go some way to silencing the suggestions surfacing online that a McLaren driver would somehow be an unworthy champion this season.

The hard way, on the other hand?

That would open the door to a world of possibilities, all equally compelling.

Some have mischievously suggested that McLaren in Abu Dhabi could be forced to confront the situation it has consciously avoided all year – being forced to prioritise one of its drivers.

If, the theory goes, Verstappen is winning and Piastri and Norris are trailing in third and fourth, would the team ask Oscar to give the podium – and with it the title – to Lando?

And, more to the point, would Piastri listen? Fascinating.

Yet who – in this hypothetical scenario – would be the driver running in second place?

Yuki Tsunoda? Yeah, right.

A Mercedes or a Ferrari? Potentially, but few expect this circuit to favour either of these teams.

So here’s a more mouthwatering – and potentially more likely – scenario: a repeat of Abu Dhabi 2016.

Let’s say Verstappen or Piastri are leading with Norris on course for the podium finish he needs in P2 or P3.

The only option available to Max or Oscar at that stage, with the laps running out, would be to drive deliberately off the pace in an attempt to back Lando into the group of cars behind.

Led by George Russell, perhaps. Or Charles Leclerc.

Or even the Racing Bulls car of Isack Hadjar, announced as Verstappen’s new Red Bull teammate for 2026 earlier this week.

Lewis Hamilton was accused by some of being unsportsmanlike when he put Nico Rosberg through the stress test at the season finale nine years ago.

Yet there was also a school of thought that his extreme tactics could have gone even further still – parking his car on the apex, for instance, in the hope that Rosberg might misjudge what the car ahead was doing and lose his front wing.

Would Piastri go to those lengths against his own teammate? Verstappen probably would.

His highly aggressive – occasionally vicious – moves against Hamilton in the closing weeks of 2021 suggest he will do whatever the situation requires when a title is on the line.

Everything Piastri and Verstappen do this weekend should be targeted at playing on Norris’s nerves and bringing his weakness – perhaps his only real flaw – to the surface.

For Lando, that situation would see him faced with what Rosberg overcame in 2016 – driving with the title close enough to touch, knowing that just one mistake, one slight misjudgement or loss of concentration, could let two, three, four, five cars flash past and take with it the chance of a lifetime.

Make it through that and the 2025 title would be fully deserved.

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