Race Report: Verstappen wins Rui-ned Qatar GP

Max Verstappen reversed his weekend performance woes to take victory at the Qatar Grand Prix ahead of Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc and McLaren’s Oscar Piastri. A chaotic and marred race punctuated by surprising results, durable tires and a few Safety cars for good measure.

Win

A win for Red Bull and Max Verstappen who secured his 9th win of the season turning a obstinate car into a compliant, race-winning platform. Max drove a brilliant race and had it all under control from turn 1 jumping George Russell for the lead never to look back. A friendly Safety Car session allowed for a free stop and cruise to a win.

A win for Ferrari who needed to finish ahead of McLaren to keep second int eh constructor’s championship alive. Charles did just that with a penalized Lando Norris dropping to the back of the grid and Oscar Piastri unable to mount a challenge to Leclerc’s Ferrari. Despite having a punctured front left tire, Carlos Sainz also managed to finish ahead of Lando Norris so a good day for Ferrari. Mclaren now leads by just 21 points.

A win for Alpine’s Pierre Gasly who finished in 5th for a big points haul that launched the team back in to 6th place for the constructor’s championship. This could be a huge move for Alpine if they can hold it in the final race making their performance in Brazil. $50M payday.

A huge win for Sauber’s Zho Guanyu who scored the teams first constructor’s points this season! A big achievement for the team and Valtteri Bottas nearly made it a dual-points finish but a recovering Lando Norris was just too fast and he pipped Bottas for P10. Still, much-needed points for a team who has a very difficult year!

Fail

A fail for Mercedes who came off a win a week ago only to suffer serious balance and performance issues on Lewis Hamilton’s side of the garage and George Russell, who started on pole, fell backward to come home in P4. A tough weekend despite George looking very quick on Friday and Saturday.

A fail for Haas who entered the weekend leading Alpine and RB in the constructor’s championship only to have Nico Hulkenberg spin out of the race leaving Kevin Magnussen to fight for a P9 finish. They dropped down to 7th in the title hunt leaving a lot of work to do in Abu Dhabi.

A fail for Nico Hulkenberg who punted Esteban Ocon and Franco Colapinto on the first lap. Nico suffered a flat tire but managed to continue the race but as for Franco and Esteban, it was game over and in Ocon’s case, Alpine really needed him fighting for points.

A fail for Lance Stroll who managed a penalty and then retired the car. Meanwhile, Fernando Alonso finished in P7 so the stark contrast couldn’t be more…well, stark!

A fail for Red Bull and Sergio Perez with another mediocre qualifying leading to a loss of power during the race and a retirement.

WTH

I am unclear how you give a penalty to Lando due to safety reasons while you, yourself, didn’t call a safety car for safety reasons due to a mirror being on track. The mirror, it is assumed, created chaos for Lewis Hamilton, Carlos Sainz and Valtteri Bottas. At least that’s that assumption of how the cut tires happened right after Bottas ran over the mirror shattering the component into a thousand pieces.

What took Rui and the stewards so long to call a Safety Car or Virtual Safety car? The cars are going 200mph down the front straight and having an entire mirror assembly on the track is very dangerous.

Much has been made of Max asking the team to check with race steward to see if Lando Norris lifted under yellow flag but I have to believe Lando would have done the very same thing. I think both drivers have a tremendous capacity beyond just driving the car and they are aware of their complete surroundings.

Pirelli Report:

All the drivers opted to start on the Medium tyre with the exception of Nico Hulkenberg (Haas) who went for the Hard. As expected, the one-stop was the preferred choice for all teams. Apart from those drivers involved in collisions on the opening lap, who had to pit immediately, everyone tried to extend the first stint on the Mediums as much as possible, getting to over half-distance. There were a few exceptions: George Russell (Mercedes) pitted after 23 laps, Valtteri Bottas switched to the Hard on the following lap and Kevin Magnussen (Haas), pitting after 27 laps. For the rest of the field, the run of pit stops began on lap 34, some coming in when the race was neutralised, to switch to the Hard tyre. Hulkenberg had already pitted to take on Mediums after lap 30.

The Safety Car made three appearances. At the last two, the chance to pit costing less time, induced Williams and Racing Bulls to gamble on the Soft, but it did not pay off, as the characteristics of this track meant the C3 proved to have too much of a drop in performance.

Qatar GP Results: