Every F1 contender's biggest mistake this season

A total of 16 points covers the top three in the drivers' championship heading into Abu Dhabi. With a gap that small separating Lando Norris, Max Verstappen, and Oscar Piastri, many moments this season could have drastically changed the title fight if they'd gone differently.

While there are no do-overs in Formula 1, here's one mistake each contending driver probably wishes he could make right. For this exercise, we'll avoid events that were out of a driver's control.

Lando Norris

Misery in Montreal: There are three weekends this season where Norris walked away empty-handed: Montreal, Zandvoort, and Las Vegas. One was due to a mechanical retirement and the other because of a team disqualification. That leaves the Canadian Grand Prix, where Norris' clumsiness cost him at least 10 points and likely more after he clipped the back of Piastri's car on the main straight with less than a handful of laps remaining.

Norris, running in fifth at the time, was on Piastri's gearbox for numerous laps before the collision. With the thought of once again finishing behind his teammate perhaps weighing too heavily on his mind, Norris stuck his car's nose where it had no business going. On a weekend where McLaren finally brought an upgrade designed to improve the comfortability and feel of Norris' MCL39, he could have lost this battle and ended up with an even bigger margin in the war.

Oscar Piastri

Baku starts a tailspin: You can pinpoint the exact moment where this championship started to flip on its head: Sunday, Sept. 21, at Turn 5 of the Baku street circuit. That's where Piastri ended up in the wall on Lap 1, ending a nightmare weekend but triggering a horrifying slump.

Up until Baku, Piastri had a healthy 31-point lead on Norris and a monstrous 94-point gap to Verstappen. Nothing seemed to be able to rattle the stoic Australian, who entered the Azerbaijan Grand Prix having never qualified worse than fourth and on a run of 14 podiums over his last 15 races. Then the unthinkable happened: Piastri crashed in Q3 of qualifying, leaving him ninth. He served up an even worse Sunday with a jump-start dropping him to the back of the field before crashing out a few corners later.

That was the start of a six-race podium drought for Piastri. Who knows if his fortunes would have changed if he'd remained composed in Baku, but it certainly opened the door for Verstappen and Norris to come back at him.

Max Verstappen

The red mist in Barcelona: Verstappen has already singled out the Spanish Grand Prix incident with George Russell as a glaring mistake, but he's also said he wouldn't blame it for a potential title loss, since he feels he's only in contention because McLaren is underdelivering.

While that's a healthy mindset, it would surely still sting if Verstappen misses out on what would be his fifth straight championship by a few points. After taking an escape road following contact from Russell, Red Bull ordered Verstappen to relinquish the position, which he felt was incorrect. While he did give up fourth place, he made sure to barge into Russell first. Verstappen was later proved right as the stewards deemed he didn't need to surrender his spot, but this did nothing to fix the damage he'd already caused, as a 10-second penalty for hitting Russell dropped him from fifth to 10th. Considering Verstappen was fourth initially, this cost him anywhere from 9-11 points.

The four-time world champion might not believe in talking about what-ifs, but the atmosphere of the title race would be very different without Barcelona's red mist hanging over his 12-point deficit.