For F1 as a sport, if not for McLaren, this was pretty much the perfect outcome.
This is the first title decider between more than two drivers since 2010. The pressure is intense, and the excitement will match it.
Norris was keen to play it all down on Sunday when asked how he would approach the final race and what could be his first F1 championship title.
“It’s the same as every weekend,” he said. “I try and beat them, they try and beat me. It’s nothing different. I just want to go to bed.”
Piastri was trying to keep in perspective his disappointment of losing a win after a strong weekend that came in the wake of a series of difficult races that had seen him lose what had at the end of August looked like being a championship-winning 34-point lead.
“It’s certainly not a catastrophe,” he said. “We made a wrong decision today. That’s clear, but it’s not like the world ended.
“So, obviously, it hurts at the moment, but with time things will get better. There’s been lots of difficult moments – this year, previous seasons together – and I feel like you always become stronger through some of these moments.
“But it all depends on how you deal with it. So I’m sure we’ll get through it. But, yeah, obviously, at the moment, it does hurt.”
Verstappen, going for a fifth consecutive crown, is simply revelling in being in a position to win a title that he has spent most of the year thinking was out of reach.
“I know that I’m 12 points down, he said. “I go in there with just positive energy. I try everything I can.
“But at the same time, if I don’t win it, I still know that I had an amazing season. So, it doesn’t really matter. It takes a lot of the pressure off. I’m just out there having a good time like I had today.”
It’s at McLaren where the hand-wringing will be most intense. And their boss knows what’s at stake.
Stella has been here before. He cited two years where the driver in third in this sort of scenario has ended up winning the title. He was involved in both.
In 2007, Stella was race engineer to Kimi Raikkonen at Ferrari when the Finn overhauled a massive points gap in the final two races to beat McLaren’s Lewis Hamilton and Alonso.
In 2010, he was engineering Alonso when Ferrari messed up in Abu Dhabi.
Stella also worked with Michael Schumacher, starting in 2000 when they won the first of five consecutive drivers’ championships – but only after the German had lost three in painful fashion in the previous seasons.
“Racing is tough,” Stella said. “Racing may give you tough lessons, but this is the history of champions. I worked with Michael Schumacher. We won several titles together.
“We all think about the titles now, but after Vegas I was thinking how much pain Michael had to go through when he started his experience at Ferrari.
“This is just the history of Formula 1. This is the true nature of racing.
“We are disappointed, but as soon as we start the review, we will get even more determined to learn from our lessons, adapt, and be stronger as a team.
“And make sure that this phenomenal, beautiful opportunity that we have to compete for the drivers’ championship and be the ones that actually stop Verstappen’s dominance in this period of Formula 1, we want to face it as the best of ourselves.”
