New Qatar Grand Prix evidence emerges after Lando Norris conspiracy theory

The closing stages of the Qatar Grand Prix and the fight for P4 between Lando Norris and Andrea Kimi Antonelli remained something of a mystery, given that the live broadcast did not offer a clear picture of what actually happened.

This duel – and the extra two points Norris managed to secure – could prove crucial ahead of the final race in Abu Dhabi, so let’s examine how Lando managed to pull it off.

What really happened between Lando Norris and Andrea Kimi Antonelli?

Following McLaren’s disastrous strategy error, in which only Oscar Piastri and Norris failed to use the safety car window for a ‘free’ tyre change, Norris found himself in a far from ideal position.

However, his troubles began even earlier.

After a poor launch off the line, he allowed Max Verstappen to retake position, meaning that both of his only rivals for the championship were ahead of him almost immediately.

The Briton continued to struggle after the safety car restart as well, where he was visibly slower than both his teammate and Verstappen.

The difficulties continued after the first pit stop and the switch to fresh mediums.

The gap to Piastri grew steadily and on Lap 36 he suffered a moment in which he almost completely lost control of the car in T14.

This mistake cost him an extra second.

This error, combined with a very poor pace in the second sector, resulted in Norris dropping to fifth after his second pit stop on Lap 45 – behind Carlos Sainz in the Williams and Antonelli in the Mercedes.

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With a machine as strong as the McLaren beneath him and much fresher tyres, Norris was expected to fairly easily overtake both drivers and climb back to third, thereby minimising the damage from the start of the race.

And although his initial laps, in which he was gaining around half a second per lap on Antonelli, looked promising, Norris simply wasn’t fast enough to complete the overtake.

And a great deal of credit for that goes to the young Mercedes driver, who drove exceptionally well in the final laps.

From the graph below we can see how consistent and precise his lap times were.

He simply did not allow Lando to close the gap enough to launch an attack using DRS. That is, until the penultimate lap, when Antonelli’s time suddenly dropped and he lost the position.

By analysing both the onboard footage and the telemetry, we can see that Antonelli made two errors in the middle sector of the track, losing significant time.

The first mistake occurred on the exit of T9, where Antonelli suddenly lost front-end grip while applying throttle, forcing him to correct with both a lift and a steering adjustment.

This pushed him off the racing line, leaving him unable to take the wide entry he wanted for T10.

With a compromised approach – and with Norris extremely close behind – the Italian made a second mistake at the apex of Turn 10, where he suffered a bigger snap of oversteer.

Once again, he had to lift, leave the track limits and stabilise the car. At that moment the deficit was more than enough for Norris to take advantage.

In the graphs below, Antonelli’s data from Lap 56, the penultimate lap of the race, is shown in white, while the data from the previous lap is shown in blue.

Carrying much higher speed on the exit of T10, Norris had no trouble reclaiming the position – and, more importantly for him, securing those two additional championship points.

Had Antonelli not made these errors, the chances of Norris overtaking him in the final lap would have been extremely slim.

A potential cause for the mistake may also have been Sainz, who was very close to Antonelli.

He too made a small error in the closing laps, allowing both Norris and Antonelli to close right up.

When tyres are at the very end of their life, even minor aerodynamic disturbance in a corner can be enough to trigger a loss of grip like this.

With only one race weekend remaining, these two extra points for Norris are worth gold.

Instead of 10 points, his lead over Verstappen is now 12, which theoretically means that Lando has given himself room to finish one position lower in Abu Dhabi and still become world champion.

And to make the season finale even more dramatic, there is one fascinating statistic: on the last five occasions where three drivers have entered the final race fighting for the title, not once has the championship been won by the driver who arrived as the points leader.

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