Norris and Piastri voice frustration at McLaren’s strategy as title race goes to finale
Lando Norris, the championship leader, has decried the McLaren team strategy error at the Qatar Grand Prix that allowed Max Verstappen right back into the fight and forced a three-way battle at next Sunday’s title-deciding finale in Abu Dhabi.Verstappen won the race in Doha after McLaren chose not to pit their drivers under a safety car early in the race.It was a costly error that gave Verstappen the lead and the win.Norris could finish only fourth and his teammate Oscar Piastri, who was equally unhappy with the team, was second.Norris had been 24 points ahead of both Piastri and Verstappen going into the weekend but now leads Verstappen by only 12 points and Piastri by 16.
“Obviously not our greatest day, not our greatest weekend,” said Norris, who believed McLaren should have pitted Piastri and him when Verstappen and the rest of the field were called in.“Both of us should have done.I would have been had over either way, because we would have double-stacked and potentially I would have lost time.A bit of time.I wouldn’t have lost a position, I don’t think.
”Piastri, who showed superb pace as he tried to hunt down Verstappen, was asked to describe his level of frustration with the team.“Pretty high and I think that’s saying quite a lot, given the last few races I’ve had,” he said.“Clearly we didn’t get it right today, which is a shame, because the whole weekend went very, very well.We had a lot of pace.I felt like I drove well.
So yeah, it’s pretty painful,”However, the Australian and Norris conceded the team would review the decision and address it before the finale in Abu Dhabi,“I put myself in this position,I’m still happy,” said Norris,“It wasn’t our finest day, it wasn’t my finest weekend in terms of driving and putting things together.
But that’s life,Everyone has bad weekends,I take it on the chin, we’ll take it on the chin, and we’ll see what we can do next weekend,”Piastri said: “I think we made a wrong decision today,I think that’s clear.
It’s not like the world ended.Obviously it hurts at the moment, but with time, things will get better.”McLaren received a double disqualification at the last round in Las Vegas and the team principal, Andrea Stella, admitted they had to improve.“The drivers are doing an exceptionally good job,” he said.“But over the last couple of races, from a team point of view, we have not been in condition to capitalise on the good work of the drivers and the potential we have in the car.
We have to acknowledge as a team that our drivers have all the reasons to be disappointed.”McLaren have faced questions for allowing their drivers to race one another all season, rather than prioritising one to seal the title, but Stella confirmed they would not be changing their approach or employing team orders at the season-deciding race.“We will confirm our racing approach, but certainly what I can say is that if any of the drivers is in a condition to pursue the quest to win the title, then we will respect this,” he said.“There will be no call which excludes the other drivers when the other driver is in a condition to win.“Whatever call we make in terms of using the collaboration of our drivers, we will have to follow some of our fundamental principles, which are foundational to our approach.
We want to be fair to our drivers, we want to race with integrity, and we want to race in a way that doesn’t surprise our drivers,Between now and Abu Dhabi, there will be a further conversation with Lando and Oscar,”Verstappen, who had trailed Piastri, the then championship leader by 104 points after the Dutch Grand Prix on 31 August and had appeared to be out of contention, was enormously pleased to still be in the title battle at the death,“This year we just had a really tough first half of the season, as everyone knows, but to still be in this fight, I think we can be really proud of it,” he said, “because in the middle of the season at some point it was almost not like you lose motivation, but it’s just you don’t really see a way forward of actually winning again in this season,”
The Guide #219: Don’t panic! Revisiting the millennium’s wildest cultural predictions
I love revisiting articles from around the turn of the millennium, a fascinatingly febrile period when everyone – but journalists especially – briefly lost the run of themselves. It seems strange now to think that the ticking over of a clock from 23:59 to 00:00 would prompt such big feelings, of excitement, terror, of end-of-days abandon, but it really did (I can remember feeling them myself as a teenager, especially the end-of-days-abandon bit.)Of course, some of that feeling came from the ticking over of the clock itself: the fears over the Y2K bug might seem quite silly today, but its potential ramifications – planes falling out of the sky, power grids failing, entire life savings being deleted in a stroke – would have sent anyone a bit loopy. There’s a very good podcast, Surviving Y2K, about some of the people who responded particularly drastically to the bug’s threat, including a bloke who planned to sit out the apocalypse by farming and eating hamsters.It does seem funny – and fitting – in the UK, column inches about this existential threat were equalled, perhaps even outmatched, by those about a big tarpaulin in Greenwich
From Christy to Neil Young: your complete entertainment guide to the week ahead
ChristyOut now Based on the life of the American boxer Christy Martin (nickname: the Coal Miner’s Daughter), this sports drama sees Sydney Sweeney Set aside her conventionally feminine America’s sweetheart aesthetic and don the mouth guard and gloves of a professional fighter.Blue MoonOut now Richard Linklater (Before Sunrise) reteams with one of his favourite actors, Ethan Hawke, for a film about Lorenz Hart, the songwriter who – in addition to My Funny Valentine and The Lady Is a Tramp – also penned the lyrics to the eponymous lunar classic. Also starring Andrew Scott and Margaret Qualley.PillionOut now Harry Melling plays the naive sub to Alexander Skarsgård’s biker dom in this kinky romance based on the 1970s-set novel Box Hill by Adam Mars-Jones, here updated to a modern-day setting, and with some success: it bagged the screenplay prize in the Un Certain Regard section at Cannes.Laura Mulvey’s Big Screen ClassicsThroughout DecemberRecent recipient of a BFI Fellowship, the film theorist Laura Mulvey coined the term “the male gaze” in a seminal 1975 essay, and thus transformed film criticism
Susan Loppert obituary
My partner Susan Loppert, who has died aged 81, was the moving force behind the development of Chelsea and Westminster Hospital Arts in the 1990s. This pioneering programme, which Susan directed for 10 years (1993-2003), was a hugely innovative and imaginative project to bring the visual and performing arts into the heart of London’s newest teaching hospital.As Susan wrote in an article for the Guardian in 2006, this was not about “the odd Monet reproduction or carols at Christmas … but 2,000 original works of art hung in the vast spaces of the stunning atrial building” as well as in clinics, wards and treatment areas – many of them specially commissioned. And on top of this, full-length operas, an annual music festival, Indian dancers in residence, and workshops by artists from poets to puppeteers.Susan was born in Grahamstown, South Africa, to Phyllis (nee Orkin, and known as “Inkey” because of her dark hair), a lawyer and anti-apartheid activist, and her husband Eric Loppert, a manager
Oh yes he is! Kiefer Sutherland dives into the world of panto
Hollywood megastars hit Leeds this year to make Tinsel Town, a feelgood festive comedy about panto. The 24 star, Rebel Wilson and more talk about their addiction to Greggs sausage rolls – and epic brawls with Danny DyerTwenty-odd years ago, I binged a TV series on DVD for the first time. At my mate’s house in a village outside Harrogate, I was glued to Jack Bauer shooting his way through 24. We probably only made it to episode six before surrendering to sleep for school the next day.Fast forward to the start of this year, and photos are all over the local news of Kiefer Sutherland out and about in nearby market towns Knaresborough and Wetherby
O come out ye faithful: a joyful roundup of UK culture this Christmas
The 12 Beans of ChristmasTouring to 19 December Last year, character comedians Adam Riches and John Kearns joined forces for an archly silly tribute to crooners Michael Ball and Alfie Boe. Now Riches is back with another leftfield celebrity riff as he gives his Game of Thrones-era Sean Bean impression (as seen on 8 Out of 10 Cats Does Countdown and his Edinburgh show Dungeons’n’Bastards) a yuletide twist. Rachel AroestiThe BFGRoyal Shakespeare theatre, Stratford-upon-Avon, to 7 February Are you ready for snozzcumbers and dream-catchers, for norphans and whizzpoppers? A stellar team have come together for this world premiere of Roald Dahl’s children’s classic, with a script courtesy of Tom Wells (Jumpers for Goalposts) and puppetry by the masterful Toby Olié (Spirited Away). John Leader heads up the cast for this beloved story of an orphan befriending a giant; Daniel Evans directs. Kate WyverCount Arthur Strong Is Charles Dickens in A Christmas CarolTouring to 14 December The reliably bewildered and chronically digressive one-time variety star takes his tangent-riddled festive show on tour again
Nominate your favourite Australian children’s picture book of all time
A good picture book is pure magic – and Australia has produced some of the best. Nominate your favourite hereThe best children’s picture books can be pure magic for adults, too: witty and wise prose or poetry that is a joy to read aloud, coupled with vivid, evocative illustrations that live on in the memory – and the culture – for decades.Australia has produced more than its fair share of classics, from the effortlessly educational to the cheekily irreverent, and we want you to nominate your favourite for a major reader’s poll we will run in late January: the best Australian children’s picture book of all time.To be eligible a book must be:Primarily intended to be read aloud to children who don’t yet read independently;Able to be read in a few minutes – we’re looking for a child’s picture book, rather than a graphic novel or illustrated chapter book;Written by an Australian (or someone we’ve claimed);Published in Australia.If the respondent is under 18, a parent or guardian must complete the form on their behalf
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