Martin Brundle pinpoints the moment it was ‘game over’ for Lando Norris at the Qatar Grand Prix

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Lando Norris can win the drivers’ championship at the Qatar Grand Prix, but his McLaren teammate Oscar Piastri is determined to take things down to the wire in Abu Dhabi.

Oscar Piastri won the Sprint Race in Qatar from pole position and has now topped every session at the Lusail circuit.

McLaren driver Lando Norris had to settle for third during the Sprint Race, but that’s a good enough result for him to know that if he wins Sunday’s race, he will be the drivers’ champion.

Norris sounded like a champion after qualifying and will start on the dirty side of the grid alongside Piastri on the front row.

However, he didn’t even try and set a final flying lap during qualifying, opening the door for Piastri to top his fourth session in succession at the Qatar Grand Prix.

Martin Brundle and David Croft were analysing Norris’ lack of a final effort in qualifying and pinpointed the moment it was ‘game over’ for his chances of being on pole position.

READ MORE: McLaren driver Lando Norris’ life outside F1 from parents to celebration

Lando Norris qualifying mistake opens the door for Oscar Piastri at the Qatar Grand Prix

Norris trundled into the pit lane as Piastri and his other rivals were setting their final laps and asked on the team radio where he had finished in the session.

Reflecting on his session on Sky Sports F1 (29/11 7:09 pm), Brundle said: “He backed off because he wanted some space to George Russell.

“George Russell then didn’t attack the next lap because he was doing two warm-up laps. Lando then got on with it, had a problem, I think, in turn one; I wasn’t sure he was 100% committed either.

“Turn two, he ran wide, and then abandons, and then I thought, well, he’s going to be charging, cooling the tyres, charging the battery back up, and then backs out of that and pitted, so goodness knows what was going on there. Why he still couldn’t go again there? Maybe he didn’t have to fuel.”

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Croft asked: “It just got messy, that’s the thing. It got very messy. At the time, Will Joseph, his race engineer, said just keep calm. He didn’t look very calm from the outside as observers.”

Brundle, switching to the onboard camera, continued: “Yeah, we’re still in the situation where Lando only needs two more third places to take the championships, so he’s not at panic stations.

“So there’s Russell, who couldn’t give a slipstream. He had to get out of the throttle on the exit, instead of powering on.

All things considered… the lap of the season?

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“So he knew immediately, and he’ll know from the deltas, we call it. the difference, on his dashboard, exactly what he’d lost there.

“But the moment he had to throttle off instead of planting it, fully open, he realised it was game over.”

Norris believed he was one-tenth up on his best time after turn one on his final lap, but that error cost him pole position at a track where topping qualifying has been pivotal to going on to win the race.

READ MORE: All you need to know about McLaren F1 Team from team principal to engine

Lando Norris is on the verge of matching Lewis Hamilton’s McLaren feat

The list of drivers who have won world championships with McLaren is incredible.

Lewis Hamilton was their most recent champion in 2008, but he joined a pantheon of drivers who will never be forgotten in Formula 1.

His battle with Piastri hasn’t quite lived up to the rivalry of Alain Prost and Ayrton Senna, but his name will be included alongside the likes of Mika Hakkinen, Niki Lauda, James Hunt and Emerson Fittipaldi.

Norris admitted after qualifying that he hoped he got a bad night’s sleep, as that’s when he performs best in races.

George Russell has noticed a change in Norris this season, and if he does take the chequered flag ahead of Piastri and Max Verstappen, then he’s unlikely to recover from any lack of sleep he suffered anytime soon.