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Verstappen exploits McLaren blunder in Qatar to set up final race title showdown
Max Verstappen boosted his late bid for a fifth successive drivers' world championship on Sunday when he took full advantage of a McLaren strategic blunder to complete a sensational hat-trick of victories at the Qatar Grand Prix.
The Red Bull driver made an immediate pit-stop during an early safety car intervention, when McLaren duo Oscar Piastri and Lando Norris stayed out, and he capitalised by driving with cool precision to triumph in convincing style.
His win lifted him into second place in the title race with 396 points, 12 behind series leader Norris who finished fourth on a disappointing evening for him and the Woking-based team who were stunned by the outcome.
Pole-sitter Piastri slipped to third, but trimmed his deficit to Norris to 18 points with one race remaining in Abu Dhabi next Sunday where Verstappen has won four times in the last five years.
"It’s all possible," said Verstappen.
The Dutch ace came home 7.995 seconds ahead of Piastri with Carlos Sainz third for Williams, 14.670 seconds adrift, ahead of Norris and the Mercedes pair Kiimi Antonelli and George Russell.
It was Verstappen’s seventh win of the season, his third in succession in Qatar and the 70th of his career.
"That was an incredible race for us," said Verstappen, who had written off his title hopes at the end of August before embarking on a sequence of results that turned a 104-point deficit to Piastri into a four-point advantage.
"We made the right call as a team to box under the safety car and it was scrappy, but we got there in the end."
Red Bull's race strategist Hannah Schmitz joined Verstappen on the podium to mark her part in his success.
Piastri, who had a potential win taken from him by poor decisions, said: "I'm speechless. I have no words. Clearly, we didn't get it right tonight. I drove the best race I could and there was nothing left out there.
"In hindsight, it’s pretty obvious what we should have done, but we'll discuss it as a team… It's obviously tough to swallow."
At lights out Piastri surged clear with a near-perfect start.
Behind him, Verstappen swooped to pass Norris round the outside of Turn One.
On lap seven Sauber's Nico Hulkenberg tagged Pierre Gasly's Alpine and spun off, prompting a safety car.
Verstappen pitted immediately from second for fresh mediums, but the McLaren pair stayed out – effectively missing out on a 'free stop' in a race where two stops were mandatory because of a 25-laps limit for each set of tyres.
- Tense finale -
"We should have followed him in, no? If we knew the car in front was staying out?" asked Norris on team radio.
The safety car period ended on lap 11 with Piastri surging clear again fromn Norris.
However, as the only team not to have stopped, they faced two mandatory stops while the rest required only one.
The Australian pitted on lap 24 and re-joined fifth before Norris made his first stop, handing the lead to Verstappen.
Verstappen led by 18 seconds before he pitted again for hards, on lap 32, the Dutchman returning third behind the two McLarens knowing they both had a further stop to make.
Unable to shake off Verstappen, the McLaren pair pitted on laps 43 and 45, hoping their new hard rubber would allow them to chase him down, but Piastri re-joined second 15 seconds adrift and Norris returned fifth behind Sainz and Antonelli.
It meant a tense finale for the McLaren pair who had the fastest cars in the race and had started with a front row lockout – but threw it away with a basic strategy error that ensured the drivers' title race will be decided in Abu Dhabi next weekend.
S.Vandenberghe--JdB
