Max Verstappen won the Qatar Grand Prix, closing the gap in the championship to just 12 points after a strategic mistake by McLaren left Oscar Piastri second and title leader Lando Norris fourth.
Piastri made a perfect start from the clean side of the grid and easily entered the first corner in front, but Norris, who started second from the dirty side of the grid, was overwhelmed by Verstappen in third. Verstappen ran alongside Norris during the second phase of the launch and continued to run along the outside of the McLaren in Turn 1, taking second place from the title leader.
The battle for the lead in the early stages was static, but the battle for 9th place between Nico Hulkenberg and Pierre Gasly put the race on a different trajectory.
Hulkenberg had an incredible pace, circling around the outside of Gasly at the first corner, but on the exit they merged in the middle of the road, causing the right rear of the Sauber to clip the left front of the Alpine, which the stewards described as a racing incident.
Gasly limped back to the pit lane for repairs, but Hulkenberg jumped on the spot and the safety car was brought out with 50 laps remaining. This was the earliest lap a driver could make the first stop of a two-stop strategy without exceeding the prescribed maximum of 25 laps per set of tires.
When the race resumed on lap 11, the McLaren driver was the only one who had not changed tires.
“Shouldn’t I have followed him (Verstappen) in? If I had known the car in front of me kept going out,” Norris questioned, but was told that McLaren had prioritized being flexible with the timing of pit stops. That would guarantee two double-stacked stops during the race, with Norris likely stalling in the congested pit lane both times.
Piastri made a successful restart, and both McLaren drivers fired from the field at a blistering pace in an attempt to build a gap on the field, but the gap between Piastri and Verstappen reached an eight-second gap over Verstappen on lap 20, with Norris almost equidistant between them, at which point the pace of both drivers was even.
Piastri pitted on lap 24, and Norris also took part in the next tour. They were lined up in fourth and fifth place, still four seconds apart, but 19 seconds behind new leader Verstappen. When Verstappen and the rest of the field stopped on lap 32, both drivers were back in the lead, but neither could make any noticeable gains over the Dutchman throughout their stint.
The race appeared to be lost and by lap 40 Piastri was encouraging his team to stop early to maximize the number of laps to put pressure on Verstappen. He pitted on lap 42 and returned to net second place, but closed the gap by 17 seconds after 14 laps.
Piastri’s pace was strong early on, but his mission was too great. Verstappen won comfortably in the 8 second range, reducing the title gap to just 12 points.
“Everything is possible now,” he said of his hopes for a title shot. “I’m very happy to win here. I’ll keep fighting until the end. It’s unbelievable.”
“This was an unbelievable race for us. We made the right decision as a team under the safety car, which was smart. I think it was a very strong weekend for us in a bit of a tough race, but we still won the race and that was the most important thing.”
Piastri was bitterly disappointed to have finished his best weekend in months without a win, and to make matters worse, he was now third in the championship, still 16 points behind title leader Norris.
“It obviously didn’t go well tonight,” he said. “In hindsight, I think it’s obvious what we were doing (with the safety car), but we’ll talk about it as a team.”
“I drove as fast as I could and the best race I could. There was nothing left in there. I tried my best, but unfortunately that wasn’t the case tonight. Obviously, it’s a little hard to swallow at the moment.”
Norris was unable to finish on the podium, and compared to his teammate Piastri, Norris lacked pace and suffered significant damage during his second pit stop.
The title leader stopped on lap 44 and returned to fifth behind the Williams of Carlos Sainz and the Mercedes of Kimi Antonelli. Despite the McLaren being the faster car, Antonelli’s straight-line speed looked sure to thwart the title leader, but the Italian rookie made a mistake at Turn 10, running wide and opening the door for an easy pass with one lap to go.
However, Antonelli’s defense was enough for Sainz to build up enough of a buffer in third place to reach the checkered flag ahead of Norris, giving him and his team their second podium of the season.
“I’m very happy and very proud of the whole team and what we accomplished today,” he said. “We went into this weekend thinking it was going to be the most difficult weekend of the year, but we managed to get a podium finish.
“I was very fast, much faster than expected. I had a successful strategy, a successful tire management, a successful start, a successful defense and management that all led to an unexpected podium. I couldn’t be more proud.”
Norris dropped back to sixth place, ahead of Antonelli and Mercedes teammate George Russell. Fernando Alonso was running ahead of Russell and Racing Bull’s Isaac Hajar, but a late spin caused him to drop two places, but when Hajar retired with a puncture in the second half, he fell back to seventh place.
Charles Leclerc secured eighth place, ahead of Liam Lawson and Hiroki Tsunoda, securing Ferrari’s weekend points tally to just four points.
Alex Albon finished 11th, ahead of Lewis Hamilton, Gabriel Bortleto, Franco Colapinto, Esteban Ocon, who received a jump start penalty, and Pierre Gasly.
Lance Stroll retired late, joining Hajjar, Oliver Bearman, who was penalized for a dangerous release, and Hulkenberg on the list of finishers.
result
