In a weekend riddled with track issues and tire restrictions, the Qatar Grand Prix saw Red Bull’s Max Verstappen clinch his third straight drivers’ championship in the sprint race on Saturday. McLaren continued their streak of dominance with a second straight double-podium after achieving a 1-3 result in the sprint and a 2-3 result in the main race on Sunday. Ferrari had an abysmal weekend, while Mercedes looked strong at the beginning, but were unlucky in the main race. After a string of bad results, Alfa Romeo jumped in the constructors’ standings with a double points finish, landing P8 and P9. With only five races left and two sprint races remaining, the push for second place in the constructors’ standings is heating up.
The weekend was a difficult one for the drivers after multiple issues were pointed out with the track and the tire performance. After the first practice and qualifying on Friday, changes were made to the curbs for Saturday due to a dangerous amount of floor damage and tire degradation being reported by the teams. The wind was at a dangerous level on Friday, and the sand on the track made it difficult for drivers to warm their tires to increase their grip. Saturday wasn’t much better in terms of wind, but the presence of sand was reduced and the curb changes proved to be helpful for lap times and overall damage. On Sunday however, the Fédération Internationale de l’Automobile (FIA) announced that teams could not use any of the tire compounds for more than 18 laps at a time, forcing some teams to implement a four-pit-stop strategy during the 57 lap race.
This rule benefited drivers like Lando Norris, who realized early on that his team would be able to push the hard and medium compound tires as hard as they could on four different stints and not have to worry about tire degradation.
McLaren further proved that they’ve turned their season around with Oscar Piastri claiming the win in the sprint race, which is his best result since entering Formula One this season. The race on Sunday was more of the same: Piastri finished P2 after exploiting the gap at turn one in the opening lap, and his teammate Norris finished behind him after making up ground past Ferrari driver Charles Leclerc and Aston Martin driver Fernando Alonso.
They benefited from the Mercedes cars crashing into each other and losing top positions early on. Piastri is having one of the best rookie seasons in Formula One since the legendary Lewis Hamilton’s rookie season, where he was only a few points short of winning the title. Piastri is down to ninth in the standings because of McLaren’s mediocrity in the first half of the season, but he has a chance to rise in the standings due to those ahead of him that are underperforming.
Mercedes drivers Hamilton and George Russell were the ones that allowed Norris and Piastri to take P2 and P3: in the opening lap, Hamilton turned in on Russell and bumped his tire, which sent Hamilton flying off into the gravel and he was unable to continue. With nowhere to go without crashing into someone else, Russell was frozen between two cars and continued the race with damage. He pitted in that opening lap and ended up P4, which was an incredible result considering how his race was almost ruined. Hamilton later took the blame for the crash, but Russell also said how he wasn’t checking his mirrors while trying to stay wheel-to-wheel with Verstappen through the first turn.
This was Russell’s second crash in three races, raising concerns about his awareness on the track.
Ferrari’s weekend was one to forget after a string of good races through September. Leclerc qualified P5 for the main race and P6 for the sprint race, while Carlos Sainz qualified P12 for the main race and P5 for the sprint race. While they looked quick in practice, they couldn’t keep the pace up for the rest of the weekend. Sainz only finished P6 in the sprint, and Leclerc picked up a penalty to finish P12 out of the points. Sunday only got worse for Ferrari: just an hour before the race, it was announced that Sainz would not participate in the race due to a fuel system issue in his car, wiping away a projected top-10 finish that could push them over the edge to second in the constructors’ standings.
Leclerc finished one position up from his qualifying result in P4, capturing 10 points for the team, but Russell nabbed 12 for Mercedes giving them a two-point gain for the weekend. McLaren is also slowly creeping up the standings with two back-to-back 33 point weekends, plus the 14 from the sprint race.
The fight for the top spots in the constructors’ standings is coming down to the wire with the remaining five races this season.
The world tour of F1 returns in two weeks with the first U.S. race since Miami earlier this season, as the teams flock to the Circuit of the Americas in Austin, Texas.
