Toto Wolff slams Lambiase suggestion as “brainless” – Whilst McLaren made a strategy call which would have made those at Ferrari proud, a small detail was playing out during the final two laps of the Qatar Grand Prix which mostly went un-noticed.
The Woking based team had made a disastrous strategy call during a lap 7 safety car, which in effect gave the rest of the field a free tyre change in a race where two stops were mandated. This meant Piastri and Norris Rivas were handed a free 26 seconds by the McLaren strategist being the time it usually takes at Losail to complete pit lane visit to a tyre change.
This locked the other nine teams into a race strategy where they would stop again on lap 32 then run 25 laps (The Pirelli maximum allowed per set of tyres) to the end of the race on lap 57. Norris however, performed his final pit stop on lap 44 giving him 12 lap fresher rubber than Antonelli and Sazin ahead who he was chasing down for third place.
The crucial difference of Norris P4
Despite catching the Mercedes driver by lap 48, such is the nature of the Losail circuit, Norris did not have the pace to overtake him. Both were on hard sets of tyres believed to be good for 35-40 laps and so with the Pirelli restriction degradation was never a concern.
The McLaren driver toiled for lap after lap behind the defensive Mercedes ahead, and as he failed to make a DRS pass once again starting the penultimate lap, it looked for certain Norris would only collect ten points for fifth place.
With McLaren expected to be the quickest team in Abu Dhabi, albeit with a reduced margin over Verstappen, Lando only claiming 5th in Qatar would have left a ten point deficit for Verstappen to overcome. And with the Red Bull driver having won four of the last five times in Abu Dhabi, hopes in Red Bull are high he can repeat that feat.
The ten points deficit would mean for Verstappen to claim a record fifth consecutive championship, the wold need to win in Qatar with Norris no better than third place. This would have left them level on points, but the win at the season finale would give Verstappen one more than Norris and decide the championship in his favour.
McLaren’s bizarre reaction to Piastri post Qatar calamity
Antonelli mistake
During the penultimate lap in Qatar, the resolute defence of Antonelli came apart as his car undeterred into turn 9, leaving him exposed on the exit having run wide. Norris pounced and fourth place was his, leaving Verstappen the conundrum of finding twelve points on his rival in Qatar to retain his title.
With McLaren and Red Bull the quickest car in the field, Norris coming fourth is far less likely than him finishing in Abu Dhabi in third – and a huge blow to Verstappen’s hopes of a miracle comeback.
Whilst the Norris overtake on Antonelli was not captured by the live TV feed, Verstappen’s engineer spotted the switch of positions on the timing sheets in front of him. Understanding the critical importance of the moment he informed Verstappen of the changes of place, implying it all appeared a bit too easy.
“It looks line Antonelli just pulled over and let Norris through,” he informed Verstappen over team radio although Lambiase later admitted he had not seen the live TV footage. It was a call made of intense frustration as he knew the consequences for his driver in the coming finale in Abu Dhabi.
F1 Drivers trash talk again in Qatar
Verstappen & Antonelli firm friends
Antonelli was seen apologising to Verstappen in the media pen after the race, although no animosity was apparent between the pair given they are firm SIM racing friends. Antonelli took Max Verstappen out in the 2025 Austrian Grand Prix, but there were no recriminations coming after the race from the world champion.
However, the tin foil hat online posse were at the ready at their keyboards. Antonelli was wide lambasted for allegedly letting Norris through with ease. Mercedes reported that he’d even received a death threats from certain keyboard warriors making Toto Wolff seriously angry over the incident.
To make matters worse after the race, Red Bull’s maverick consultant Dr. Helmut Marko appeared to support the conspiracy theory. The 82 year old advisor to the racing team said it was “obvious” Antonelli “more or less waved Lando by”. Marko is known for his mind games and presumably this was a clumsy attempt to undermine McLaren and Mercedes.
“I was pushing hard to stay ahead of Norris in the closing stages and unfortunately just pushed a little bit too hard. I got out of shape through turn nine and then had a massive snap of oversteer,” revealed Kimi Antonelli after the race.
Leaks reveal more chaos at Aston Martin
Wolff slams Lambiase suggestion as “brainless”
Mercedes team boss was visibly angry over the affair and a race which had seen his lead driver drop from his start position of fourth to finish just sixth, one place behind his team mate. Mercedes are fighting to close out second in the constructors title with Red Bull and they lost ground to their rivals at the Qatar Grand Prix.
“We are fighting for P2 (2nd place) in the championship, which is important for us. Kimi is fighting for a potential P3,” said Wolff. Speaking of the conspiracy theory started by Verstappen’s race engineer, he was incandescent: “I mean, how brainless can you be to even say something like this?
“And it annoys me because I’m annoyed with the race itself, how it went,” he added. “And then hearing such nonsense blows my mind. But why would we do this? Why would we even think about interfering in a driver championship? You really need to check yourself whether you are seeing ghosts,” concluded the Mercedes boss.
The Mercedes F1 team recorded over 11 “severe or suspect” posts across Antonelli’s social media including death threats with 300 similarly abusive posts on the team’s social media accounts. Red Bull have since issued the following statement today by way of clarification.
Hamilton shock revelation: “‘I’ve lost confidence in Ferrari team turnaround’
Whilst the McLaren meltdown in the Qatari desert was grabbing all the Formula One headlines, Lewis Hamilton was bidding a premature farewell to the 2025 racing season.
In Las Vegas, Lewis described his “worst year” in F1 as a “nightmare.” For the first time in his career Lewis looks set to complete a calendar year without a podium Grand Prix finish. His chipper win in the Chinese Sprint in round two is a long and distant memory, as the seven times work champion closes out on his annus horribilis.
By all accounts following his fanfare arrival in Maranello, Hamilton has not been accepted by the team and suffered a difficult relationship with his race engineer. Such was the tetchy radio exchanges between the pair during the Qatar Grand Prix, it led Sky commentator David Croft to speculate whether Hamilton would be looking for a replacement for 2026…. READ MORE
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