F1’s most shocking disqualifications following McLaren’s Las Vegas nightmare
Max Verstappen’s victory in the recent Las Vegas Grand Prix seemingly kept the Formula One world title fight alive, just about. The Flying Dutchman stormed to victory on the strip, with championship leader Lando Norris in second and the young Brit’s McLaren teammate Oscar Piastri in fourth.
However, more drama was just around the corner, even after the chequered flag had fallen.
With Norris reveling in his 24-point lead at the summit of the standings with just two Grand Prix remaining, a spanner was suddenly thrown into the works. Both McLarens were ruthlessly thrown out of the results after post-race scrutineering revealed a technical breach: the depth of their skid blocks fell short of regulatory minimums.
McLaren’s Double Disqualification
Stewards measured Norris’s rear skid at just 8.88mm and 8.93mm—fractionally under the mandated 9mm, a margin thinner than a human hair. McLaren pointed to excessive “porpoising,” that violent underbody oscillation that can plague a modern F1 car on bumpier circuits. Both cars suffered more ground contact than expected. The team insisted there was no foul play, and the FIA concurred—the breach was accidental, the result of a perfect storm of street circuit chaos, rain-hit practice running, and the unyielding hunt for performance.
But regardless of the reasoning, accidental or not, only one thing is truly clear. Max Verstappen’s hopes of a fifth straight world championship are suddenly alive and well. F1’s reigning king is now just 24 points off the championship lead, a scarcely believable margin considering the fact that online odds providers priced him as a 100/1 outsider as recently as August. Now, those same F1 odds providers make the Dutchman a 5/2 narrow second favorite, with Norris still the 1/3 frontrunner.
While this double disqualification is certainly gobsmacking, this is far from the first time a DQ has turned a race, or indeed a championship, on its head. Here are three such occasions from over the years.
Michael Schumacher’s Jerez 1997 Meltdown
Few images are etched in F1 folklore quite like the great Michael Schumacher, helmet still on, walking away from his beached Ferrari at Jerez in ’97. This was the denouement to a season of relentless tension. Schumacher and Jacques Villeneuve arrived in Spain’s season decider separated by a single point. Villeneuve, needing to finish ahead of Schumacher in order to claim the title, lost the lead on the opening lap, but on lap 47, his opportunity arrived.
The Canadian star was less than a second behind Schumi and closing quickly. Then the door was open for an overtake at the sharp, right-hand Dry Sac corner. Villeneuve threw his Williams up the inside, and inexplicably, Schumacher turned in on his championship rival in a bid to collide and take both out of the race just as he did with Damon Hill three years prior.
Unfortunately for Schumacher, this time around, the dirty tactic didn’t work. His Ferrari was damaged and subsequently retired, but Villeneuve was able to race on. He nursed his ailing Williams to third place—and with it, claimed the world title for the first time. But Formula One’s rulers were not finished.
After intense video analysis, the FIA stripped Schumacher of his entire championship standing for “unsportsmanlike conduct,” wiping his 78 points from the record books. The verdict was as dramatic as the moment itself: a sporting legend’s title dream extinguished, his reputation stained, and the world reminded of F1’s zero-tolerance policy on gamesmanship. Did the episode change Schumacher? There’s no arguing with five straight titles from 2000 to 2004, but Jerez certainly remains a stain on his incredible legacy.
McLaren’s 2007 Spygate
Fast forward a decade, and it’s McLaren cast in the role of scandalous protagonist. The 2007 season delivered a blockbuster tale: a clandestine transfer of nearly 800 pages of Ferrari technical secrets into McLaren’s hands, internecine rivalry that boiled over in the garage, and the FIA’s most draconian penalty—a $100 million fine and expulsion from the constructors’ championship.
This was more than corporate espionage; it was a civil war in one of the sport’s most illustrious teams. Rookie sensation Lewis Hamilton and double world champion Fernando Alonso were locked in a battle that became Shakespearean in its intensity. When the Spaniard threatened the team with exposure after a qualifying incident with his younger teammate, the flames reached the FIA headquarters.
The rest is F1 infamy. The constructors’ title shifted to Ferrari, while Hamilton and Alonso’s infamous rivalry opened the door for Kimi Raikkonen to sweep in unnoticed and claim the driver’s title from under their noses by a single point.
Lewis Hamilton’s 2009 “Lie-Gate”
Melbourne, 2009. For Lewis Hamilton and McLaren, redemption was on the line. The young Brit headed into the season as the reigning champion; however, a myriad of rule changes had left his McLaren languishing near the back of the grid, while the likes of Brawn GP and Red Bull emerged as the shock pace setters. Still, in a wild season opener in Australia, Hamilton managed to avoid the chaos unfolding around him to somehow get his much slower McLaren onto the podium. Or so we thought.
The aftermath of the race saw the unfolding of a scandal that laid bare the value of truth for all to see. Initially promoted to third after Jarno Trulli was penalized for overtaking under the safety car, post-race scrutiny—backed by irrefutable radio evidence—unmasked the full story. Hamilton and McLaren had given misleading evidence to stewards, claiming events that simply hadn’t happened.
The response was swift and merciless. Hamilton’s points were erased, his podium stripped, and McLaren endured the threat of a suspended ban. Sporting director Dave Ryan was dismissed, and Hamilton stood before the press, visibly shaken, to issue a public apology.