by Linus O'Howell
Max Verstappen led a pretty comfortable race out front to take his 14th win of the season whilst Oscar Piastri and Lando Norris rounded out the podium in another great day for McLaren in a race where plenty of drivers struggled due to the extreme conditions.
The most notable moments
At Turn 1, lap 1, calamity struck for Mercedes as George Russell and Lewis Hamilton collided resulting in Hamilton being out of the race whilst Russell was sent to the back of the field.
📸 Hamilton accepted responsibility for the incident which saw his race end at Turn 1 in Lusail.
This was a disaster for Mercedes and for me, this was definitely the fault of Hamilton as he could’ve gone much wider whilst Russell had nowhere to go due to Max Verstappen being on his right hand side.
A Safety Car was called out and this saw Valtteri Bottas, Lance Stroll, Kevin Magnussen, and Liam Lawson all pit on the end of lap 3 meaning they all could do three 18 lap stints to the end due to the new regulation that was brought in due to safety concerns.
In terms of the rest of the race, not much happened, but there are still some things to talk about. Fernando Alonso made a couple of mistakes, rare by the Spaniard's standards as he ran off track, whilst there were quite a few penalties handed out for track limits (Sergio Perez ended up receiving a total of 15 seconds worth of penalties during the entire Grand Prix).
📸 Perez had a largely poor weekend in Qatar.
Russell was also able to climb back through to take a great P4, while Alfa Romeo scored double points for the first time all season.
📸 Double points for Alfa Romeo in a race Bottas described as "torture" due to the heat.
The biggest talking point of the race (besides the Mercedes’ colliding) was the fact that plenty of drivers were struggling to cope with the extreme weather conditions plus the fact that they were basically pushing flat out for the entire race due to only being allowed on a certain tyre for 18 laps. Logan Sargeant had to retire early due to feeling unwell whilst the likes of Russell, Stroll, Esteban Ocon and Alex Albon were all seen struggling either during or after the Grand Prix with Ocon reporting he was sick in his helmet on lap 15 and post race a number of drivers visiting the medical centre. It’s very concerning and I hope everyone is feeling okay.
📸 Sargeant retired from the race due to illness as he suffered from dehydration, despite trying to continue.
Drivers who impressed
There were three drivers that impressed me the most during this race and the first one is obviously Max Verstappen. On a weekend where Max was crowned a 3-time World Champion, he’s shone his class throughout.
📸 Max now holds the record for the shortest time between world championship title #1 and #3 at 664 days between them.
The second driver that impressed me was Oscar Piastri and the reason for that is because I feel like he drove a super race. Oscar has been really good for the second half of this season, but this feels like the weekend where he properly lifted himself into another tier.
📸 An exhausted Piastri holds aloft his second podium trophy of an incredible rookie year. Is he the best rookie we've seen since Sebastian Vettel took a win for Toro Rosso all those years ago?
The final driver that I was most impressed by was Valtteri Bottas and for me, this was probably Bottas’ best drive of the season and certainly his best weekend.
Lando Norris, George Russell, Esteban Ocon, and Zhou Guanyu all had great races for different reasons, notably Ocon who took 7th despite severe illness.
Drivers who struggled
There were two drivers that really didn’t impress me in this race and the first one is Liam Lawson. After a really impressive first four weekends with Alpha Tauri, Liam’s fifth (and what looks to be final) weekend with the team has been pretty poor and finishing last of the running cars wasn't a particually good look for the Kiwi.
📸 In his fifth race weekend with Alpha Tauri, Lawson had his worst race finish after a poor weekend performance including a DNF in the sprint race.
The other driver that I wasn’t impressed by at all was Lewis Hamilton and that’s simply because I feel that it was definetly Lewis’ fault when the two Mercedes’ came together. I’m surprised that someone of Hamilton’s experience would’ve turned in on his teammate like that, but I’m also maybe more surprised about the fact that a Hamilton and Russell collision hasn’t happened sooner.
I also wasn’t particularly impressed by the pace of both Nico Hulkenberg(who was hindered by an early penalty) and Logan Sargeant (even though I will be less harsh on Sargeant as he was feeling unwell) whilst Sergio Perez and Yuki Tsunoda also had tough days for very different reasons.
Overall Race Results
1) Max Verstappen: Winner 2) Oscar Piastri: +4.833 3) Lando Norris: +5.969 4) George Russell: +34.119 5) Charles Leclerc: +38.976 6) Fernando Alonso: +49.032 7) Esteban Ocon: +62.390 8) Valtteri Bottas: +66.563 9) Zhou Guanyu: +76.127 10) Sergio Perez: +80.181 (5 second penalty) 11) Lance Stroll: +81.652 (10 second penalty) 12) Pierre Gasly: +82.300 (10 second penalty) 13) Alex Albon: +91.014 (10 second penalty) 14) Kevin Magnussen: +1 Lap 15) Yuki Tsunoda: +1 Lap 16) Nico Hulkenberg: +1 Lap 17) Liam Lawson: +1 Lap
DNF: Logan Sargeant (unwell), Lewis Hamilton (Collision)
DNS: Carlos Sainz (Fuel issue)
F1 heads next for the USA for the US GP at Circuit of the Americas on the 20th to the 22nd of October.
📸 Image credits: Formula Motorsport Limited, McLaren Racing, Williams Racing, Red Bull Content Pool, Scuderia Alpha Tauri, Alfa Romeo Stake F1 Team.
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