Max Verstappen has suggested that he and Red Bull would have already won the 2025 Drivers' Championship over Lando Norris and Oscar Piastri if they had the fastest car all season.
Verstappen enters the penultimate round of the 2025 season a total of 24 points behind championship leader Norris in the standings.
Piastri, meanwhile, is level on points with the Dutchman.
Norris initially finished second at the Las Vegas Grand Prix - a race won by Verstappen - to lead Piastri by 31 points and Verstappen by 42.
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But both McLarens were disqualified after excessive plank wear was recorded by FIA scrutineers post-race.
There is a maximum of 58 points up for grabs over the final two race weekends, with Qatar hosting the sixth and last sprint race of the season.
Should Norris finish ahead of Verstappen in the Grand Prix itself - and, in that case, picks up a single point in the sprint - he will be crowned as the 2025 Drivers' Champion.
If both drivers finish on equal points, Verstappen would need to have won both of the final races to overtake Norris' seasonal tally and win it on countback.
Ahead of the race weekend, the Red Bull driver claimed to F1TV that, had his team had the same car performance as McLaren throughout the season, they would have already won the title.
"We have to be realistic - we are in this fight still because of other people's failures," he stated. "Not because, if you look at the whole of the season, what we did.
"Yes, we did really well, we really maximised pretty much all races. But if we would have been in the position of how dominant a car [McLaren] had, let's say that, the championship would have been over a long time ago."
Between the Monaco and Hungarian Grands Prix, Verstappen only recorded one podium finish in seven races, and retired from the Austrian Grand Prix after being hit by Kimi Antonelli on lap one.
He also finished 10th in Spain after receiving a late-race time penalty for crashing into George Russell.
Since the Dutch Grand Prix, Verstappen has finished on the podium in all eight races, winning four of them.
Piastri, meanwhile, hasn't finished on the podium in six races, and crashed out of the Azerbaijan Grand Prix and the sprints in USA and Brazil.
Norris suffered an engine failure while running second at the Dutch Grand Prix.
Topics: Max Verstappen, Lando Norris, Oscar Piastri, McLaren, Red Bull Racing, Formula 1, Qatar
Ryan Smart