Max Verstappen beat his McLaren rivals on strategy to claim a crucial victory at the Qatar Grand Prix, guaranteeing a three-way championship battle at the season finale in Abu Dhabi next weekend.
The Dutchman’s 70th career grand prix win, combined with Lando Norris’s fourth-place finish, slashed the championship gap to Norris from 25 points to just 12. Oscar Piastri trails Norris by 16 points after securing a second on Sunday.
The race hinged on a Lap 7 safety car triggered by contact between Nico Hülkenberg and Pierre Gasly. While Verstappen and the field pitted immediately, McLaren gambled by keeping both Piastri and Norris on track. In a race with a mandatory two-stop rule, the decision backfired dramatically, all but promising both McLarens would finish behind Verstappen.
When Piastri pitted on Lap 43 for hard tires, followed by Norris on Lap 45, the strategy unraveled. Norris’s slower 2.7-second stop proved costly as he emerged behind Carlos Sainz and Kimi Antonelli. Despite fresher rubber and a late-race pass on the Mercedes rookie, he couldn’t recover a podium position and finished fourth.
Verstappen managed his hard tires brilliantly over the final 24 laps, holding off Piastri by over 11 seconds at the flag. Sainz claimed his second podium of the year despite late car damage.
The championship now goes down to the wire in Abu Dhabi on Dec. 7.
McLaren’s strategy gamble backfires
Pirelli’s decision to enforce a maximum stint length of 25 laps on safety grounds had the potential to turn this race into a procession. Instead, it opened a trap door that McLaren fell straight through.
The early safety car called on Lap 7 for the crash between Nico Hülkenberg and Pierre Gasly could not have been timed better for strategists. The 57-lap race distance meant there were two exact 25-lap stints to make it to the end without the massive pit lane time loss of pitting under green.
But McLaren didn’t take it, opting to keep both Piastri and Norris out in a move that would cost it the race win.
Norris’ race engineer, Will Joseph, told him the rest of the field wouldn’t have any flexibility. But it effectively handed Verstappen a 25-second time gain as he pitted and emerged right behind the papaya cars. McLaren gambled on track position being king — but the fact everyone pitted wiped away that advantage completely.
McLaren’s pace was enough to claw back to second for Piastri, who made an early second stop in the faint hope of hunting down Verstappen. But for Norris, his struggle for pace meant he emerged behind Sainz and Kimi Antonelli, and was left stuck behind the Mercedes for the final stint as he struggled to get close enough. Norris slipped past Antonelli for fourth on the penultimate lap, but could not catch Sainz.
Nine teams did one thing. One did another. For McLaren, in the heat of the championship fight, this was a big, big call to make that backfired spectacularly, opening the door for Verstappen to win a race that should never really have been his.
For Norris in particular, P4 was a setback. Yes, he’ll go to Abu Dhabi as the leader, but with just 12 points in hand to Verstappen and 16 to Piastri, the pressure will be firmly on.
Luke Smith
Max Verstappen keeps his title hopes alive
Coming into Sunday’s race, the odds were stacked against Verstappen. He qualified third and didn’t quite seem comfortable with the car throughout different portions of the weekend, complaining about bouncing at times.
Track position is crucial at Lusail International Circuit, given the difficult nature of overtaking with its high-speed nature. All Verstappen needed to do was finish ahead of Norris to keep his title chances alive.
The first hurdle crossed came on the opening lap. The Dutchman managed to get past the Briton at Turn 1, after Norris seemed to play the start cautiously. Then came the safety car due to Gasly and Hulkenberg’s moment that led to the Sauber ending up in the gravel. It provided another gain for Verstappen, after Red Bull and McLaren diverged on pit stop strategy. Red Bull called in Verstappen to pit during the safety car period, while McLaren kept its drivers out.
This gave McLaren strong track position but forced it to have a different strategy from the rest of the grid, given the mandatory pit stops.
The stints couldn’t go beyond 25 laps long, which meant Verstappen and the rest of the grid would need to pit on Lap 32 while the McLaren duo faced a Lap 25 pit stop. While pit lane was busy with a majority of the grid diving into pit, Verstappen had an easier time between the gap he built while in the lead and being the first to dive in for a second stop.
It was smooth sailing for the Dutchman once the McLarens had their second stops several laps later. He built a 10-second gap over Piastri by Lap 55, and with the victory, Verstappen moved past Piastri in the driver standings.
Madeline Coleman
Carlos Sainz stars despite gloomy predictions
Coming into the weekend, Sainz cautioned against Williams having a strong weekend given the nature of Lusail International Circuit.
The car has historically been weaker in medium and high-speed corners, and Sainz said, “We’re the slowest on those sorts of corners … we see the GPS data, and we tend to be one of the slowest cars or one of the slowest teams.”
Carlos Sainz performed much better than he expected in Qatar. (Clive Mason/Getty Images)
Qatar’s track layout is largely made up of those types of corners, and Sainz predicted this would be one of the most difficult weekends of the season.
Sainz’s weekend, though, was the opposite. He scored points in the sprint race and qualified seventh for the grand prix, starkly contrasting teammate Alex Albon’s weekend as he was knocked out in Q2 after qualifying P15.
Sainz made early gains on the start, moving up two spots and managed to stay within the top five throughout the race. He ran as high as second at one point, after the McLaren drivers went through their first pit stops.
As the race entered the final stages, Sainz wanted to push flat out, a podium finish just within reach. He managed to keep Kimi Antonelli at bay, who was 2.5 seconds behind on Lap 48, but he reported a possible issue on Lap 52, understeer in the righthand corners. It became a waiting game to see if he could keep Antonelli and Norris back to finish P3.
He held on and ended the day third, bringing home his second podium with Williams since joining this season. Antonelli was Sainz’s biggest threat in the final stages, but Norris got past the Mercedes rookie, putting pressure on Sainz in the final lap.
Madeline Coleman
Another low in Hamilton’s miserable season
Perhaps the only mercy for Lewis Hamilton from the weekend is that he now has just one more race to go with this year’s Ferrari, a car that will leave few fond memories.
The Qatar weekend continued Hamilton’s recent downward spiral in results as he was eliminated in the first stage of qualifying for both the sprint race and the grand prix, qualifying down in 18th for Sunday’s race. But he spent the rest of it stuck in DRS traffic, eventually crossing the line 12th.
Teammate Charles Leclerc didn’t have it much better, scoring just four points for eighth place as Ferrari fell further back, all but ending its already-faint hopes of getting second in the constructors’ championship.
The Ferrari SF-25 car looked a handful on the track right through the race weekend. Early in the race, when Leclerc was told he was the fastest car through one of the corners but needed to manage his pace, the Monegasque driver replied: “I’m slow. Let’s stop with this…”
There’s little else for Ferrari to salvage from this season, but Qatar will go down as a bleak moment in the story of Hamilton’s first year in red.
Luke Smith