Oscar Piastri must cut into Lando Norris' points lead in Vegas.
Piastri trails his McLaren teammate by 34 points heading into Saturday night's Las Vegas Grand Prix (11 p.m. ET, ESPN). If Piastri loses ground to Norris, he'll still be mathematically in the points race with two races and a sprint race to go. But he won't realistically be in the championship hunt.
If you need a quick refresher on the F1 points system, whoever wins at Las Vegas will get 25 points. Second place will get 18 points and third will get 15. The top 10 finishers score points; 10th receives a single point. In next weekend's sprint race in Qatar, the top eight finishers will get points. The winner gets eighth. The eighth-place driver gets a point.
Even if Piastri finishes 10th in Vegas and Norris wins the race Piastri still would be mathematically eligible to win the title. But we all know that it'd be Norris' title to lose at that point.
Norris hasn't finished worse than third in any of the last four races. Since an engine failure at Zandvoort ended his race early, he hasn't finished lower than seventh. That came in the Azerbaijan Grand Prix — a race that Piastri crashed out of on the first lap.
Both Norris and Piastri have won seven races this season. But six of Piastri's seven wins came over the first nine races of the season. As Norris has clicked off podiums lately, Piastri's best finish since Baku is a fourth, with three other fifth-place finishes.
That's led to a massive points swing. Even after the crash, Piastri left Baku leading Norris by 25 points. Thanks to a crash in the Brazil sprint race that Norris won, Piastri has lost 59 points to his teammate over the last four races. Stopping that slide on Saturday night is mandatory if he's going to credibly challenge Norris for the championship over the final two weekends of the year.
Piastri's recent form is reflected in the betting odds for Saturday night's race too. Despite McLaren's season-long dominance, he's the No. 5 favorite at BetMGM at 10-1 to win the race. Norris (+250) is the No. 2 favorite behind Max Verstappen (+160) after Verstappen's incredible drive to third in Brazil.
Verstappen had threatened to sneak into the title race himself over the last two months, but Norris' win in Brazil pretty much ended any chance he had. Verstappen enters Las Vegas 59 points behind Norris. If that margin holds — or gets bigger — Verstappen, winner of the last four championships, will be officially eliminated from title contention Saturday.
Defending race winner George Russell is +400 to go back-to-back after a Mercedes 1-2 in 2024. The Mercedes car loves cooler conditions and has fared well on street circuits. Last year's race was unseasonably cold; but Saturday night's race won't be a warm race, either. Temperatures should be around 60 degrees at the time of the green flag.
