Is Max Verstappen about to teach Oscar Piastri and Lando Norris a valuable lesson?

It's 1986 all over again. 

Oscar Piastri handed Lando Norris a gilt-edged opportunity to do his F1 drivers' championship lead serious damage at the Azerbaijan Grand Prix. He didn't take it.

Max Verstappen did – and the Dutchman now looks poised to teach the McLaren drivers a valuable lesson.

To borrow from Sir Francis Bacon, knowledge is power. And the four-time drivers' champion has done this before. The fact that neither McLaren driver has started to show in Baku.

The now-67-time grand prix winner has only a slim chance at a fifth consecutive title, but it is a chance, and if Norris isn't going to take advantage of errors from the other side of the McLaren garage, Verstappen most certainly will.

McLaren team principal Andrea Stella insists the Red Bull driver is a championship contender, and until the maths says he isn't, it is hard to argue against it.

"A firm YES," the Italian responded when asked if Verstappen is still a factor in the title fight after he planted his RB21 on pole in Baku. "Can you write it in capitals? Because it was quoted in capitals."

After the Dutch Grand Prix, Verstappen found himself 104 points adrift of Piastri. In the two subsequent rounds, he's slashed that seemingly insurmountable margin by 35 points.

One third down, two to go. Norris is closer, much closer, but you could forgive the Australian for being more wary of the external threat – especially after what transpired in Azerbaijan.

Dropped ball and open goal

There are two main silver linings to Piastri's calamitous weekend. First, he got three mistakes out of his system in one fell swoop, and by qualifying a lowly ninth, his errors on the Sunday felt less devastating.

Second, even though his team-mate dropped the ball and left the goal wide open, Norris missed. The six points the Briton procured were fewer than the number he would have eaten into Piastri's deficit by if he had led home a McLaren one-two.

After the grand prix, Stella argued that even champions have a bad weekend once in a while. True. However, that discounts the timing of the 24-year-old's nightmare event. The context of it matters and might, just might, the pressure be getting to Piastri?

You would expect him to respond, even emphatically, in Singapore. He is ice-cold, and whilst he melted in the heat of the Land of Fire, you can count the mistakes he has made this season on one hand.

However, the Marina Bay Circuit is a happy hunting ground for his team-mate, who will be formidable there. Plus, if the tension is starting to weigh heavily on him, there will be more errors to come.

As for Norris, the majority of the damage was done on Saturday. He and the team fumbled qualifying. He should have been no lower than third on the grid – and realistically on the front row – but he was sent out too early and failed to execute.

There was less the 25-year-old could have done, and Stella was adamant that McLaren did not provide him with a good enough car. Yes, but two critical moments cost him crucial points.

First, Norris was asleep at the safety car restart. He fell behind Charles Leclerc and lost precious time behind the Ferrari when he could have been attacking slower cars ahead.

Secondly, another poor pit stop from the papaya team prevented him from attacking Yuki Tsunoda and Liam Lawson in the closing stages.

He started where he finished in seventh, but it really should have been fifth, and the 25-point deficit ought to be 21.

Ultimately, not capitalising on Piastri's messy weekend may well prove decisive come Abu Dhabi. The Australian was overdue for a retirement, and this might have been it.

Be careful what you wish for

At Monza, Norris highlighted how it could be advantageous to have another driver in the mix to help take points from Piastri in the title fight.

"It would certainly make my life easier if there were just some more drivers in between every now and then," he said. "The thing is, we're so dominant as a team that it almost makes my life harder…"

Well, be careful what you wish for, because it is fast becoming apparent that the driver coming between the McLarens is: a) not just any driver; and b), more than capable of supplanting them both.

The floor update Red Bull delivered to Verstappen’s RB21 in Italy, and other recent changes the team has made under the leadership of Laurent Mekies, has vaulted the 27-year-old back to grand prix-winning ways.

That upgrade quickly proved to have a wider working window than first expected. The trip to Singapore will be a key litmus test for how competitive Verstappen can be over the final seven rounds; he’s never won there, and Red Bull has struggled there in years past, but what difference will the steps taken by the six-time constructors’ champions make?

Then comes the Austin-Mexico City swing and a return to medium speed. Mekies pointed out after Baku that McLaren "killed" the Milton Keynes team at Zandvoort, but Stella was quick to highlight how strong the RB21 was in such corners at Monza after the update.

In short, the next three rounds will be fundamental to establishing whether Verstappen will have the tools at his disposal to steal the championship from Norris and Piastri.

If he has been graced with the machinery he needs, that is where his knowledge of prevailing in a title battle – and undeniable ability to maximise results and get the most from every opportunity afforded him – is power. 

1986 all over again

In '86, Nelson Piquet and Nigel Mansell – vying for title glory in the superior Williams – ended up leaving the back door open for Alain Prost to sneak in. The diminutive Frenchman nicked the crown from under their noses.

Fast forward nearly four decades, could history be repeating itself? I dismissed the notion of cosmic retribution in this column a few weeks ago, but could this be the universe correcting itself by evening the score at McLaren?

Now just 69 points back from Piastri in the standings, and despite the MCL39 being the class of the field, the menace of the Red Bull driver is looming large.

As convenient as some sort of divine intervention would be for the Woking-based squad and its drivers to explain away what could only be classified as a catastrophic implosion, if it somehow came to pass, it would do Verstappen an almighty disservice.

If – and it is a big if - Verstappen does somehow succeed in taking the crown against the dominant McLarens, it will have been thoroughly earned. It will be the best of his five titles, his ultimate triumph – so far.

Every ounce of praise and recognition for that achievement will be merited. It will not be the hand of God, but the hand of greatness.