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QATAR GP – Max Verstappen takes a seven-second win after McLaren strategy blunder denies Lando Norris chance of championship

Testing & Race Reports
Jack
30-11-2025

 

Max Verstappen has won the Qatar Grand Prix, finishing seven seconds ahead of Oscar Piastri as they keep their championship challenge alive going into the final race next weekend. The Dutchman drove a brilliant race to take the lead when Lando Norris made his second pit stop and took the lead when the championship leader dropped back following his stop.

Verstappen took advantage of an early safety car to make his first stop along with the majority of the field, but McLaren did not, which proved to be costly as they ran maximum stint lengths. That meant when it came to the second stop, the McLaren’s dropped behind the four-time champion.

When Norris made the second mandatory stop on lap forty-four, he had twelve laps to clear Kimi Antonelli and Carlos Sainz to take the title. Then, when trying to overtake Antonelli he had a wobble and that caused him to lose momentum in the final ten laps, but Norris couldn’t get close enough early on and only managed to pass the Mercedes on the final lap when the Italian ran wide.

Piastri came in on with fifteen laps to the end, and fitted hard tyres, but although he was able to reduce Verstappen’s led to eight seconds by the end, the four-time champion was under no pressure. This followed a moment on lap thirty-five when he nearly crashed while McLaren were trying, but ultimately failed, to make their second stop and cover off Verstappen.

Going into the final race, Norris has a twelve-point lead over Verstappen, with Piastri four points further behind. Many of the questions over the next few days will be whether McLaren’s Paypa Rules cost Norris the opportunity to wrap up the title, and if he is beaten by Verstappen that could be the moment they lost the title. Norris needs second if the Dutchman wins in Yas Marina to take his maiden title.

This race was always a must win for Verstappen and Piastri, Norris went into it as the only driver mathematically able to take the title. Verstappen made an excellent start and overtook Norris for second. However, Piastri stayed ahead of both thanks to a textbook getaway from pole and looked set to control a race in which overtaking was expected to be very difficult.

Post-race speaking to Sky Sports, team principal Andreas Stella admitted they made the wrong call going for the alternate strategy because of the safety car and a twenty-five lap maximum on the tyres.

Explaining “The main reason was related to not expecting everyone else to pit, so it was a decision. As a matter of fact, it wasn’t the correct decision.”

McLaren was the only team not to pit following the lap seven safety car. Pirelli for safety, imposed a twenty-five lap maximum stint length, which locked in Verstappen to run the rest of the race by doing two twenty-five lap stints. McLaren ran to lap twenty-four, meaning they would need to stop again.

The decision in hindsight saw them throw away the race win for Piastri, and allowed Verstappen won to win, taking his seventh win of the season, equalling Norris and Piastri. Piastri angered about how Verstappen has still remained in this championship fight having closed a hundred and four point gap in eight race weekends.

McLaren might have been relying on being able to use their pace advantage in the middle and final stint, or a VSC / second safety car later to pass Verstappen, that didn’t materialise and gave their championship rival the edge. Pirelli had imposed a maximum stint length of twenty-five laps because of concerns about tyre integratory.

It was at that second stop that Verstappen took the lead, while Norris dropped to fifth, critically behind the Red Bull and Piastri. With ten to go, he needed to make two places but then struggled to find a way to pass Antonelli, only getting the move done when the Italian ran wide with a lap and a half remaining.

Norris put the hammer down but ran out of time to pass Sainz, finishing six and a half tenths off but with Piastri second, he couldn’t take the title on countback. Sainz was a huge gainer in the strategy blunder by McLaren as it allowed the Spaniard to finish a second ahead of Norris and score his second podium of the year.

Sainz had passed Isack Hadjar at the start and then capitalised on Antonelli’s slow stop amid the safety car to move up a further position. Sainz was well clear of Antonelli, who went off track on the penultimate lap to allow Norris to make his way up to fourth.

Norris has a sixteen-point lead, meaning he needs to outscore Piastri by nine points, finishing fifth or higher and outscore Verstappen by thirteen points to seal the championship. That means a podium in Abu Dhabi is his easiest way to secure a maiden championship, as it wouldn’t matter where Piastri or Verstappen finish.

Verstappen wins the Qatar Grand Prix: “This was an incredible race for us, we made the right call as a team to box under that safety car and yeah, that was smart. Super happy to win here, we stayed in the fight until the end. Incredible.”

Piastri, who finished second in Qatar, “Yeah, clearly we didn’t get it right tonight. I drove the best race that I could, the fastest that I could. There was nothing left out there. I’ve tried my best, but it wasn’t to be tonight, unfortunately.”

Sainz said, “I’m so happy and so proud of the team of what we have done today. We came into this weekend thinking it was going to be the most difficult weekend of the year, and suddenly we came out of it with a podium.”

Norris told Sky Sports, “It’s tough, we just have to have faith in the team to make the right decision, it was a gamble and we were the ones who took the gamble in a way. Now it’s the wrong decision; we shouldn’t have done it. Oscar [Piastri] lost the win and I lost P2, so we didn’t do a good job today.”

George Russell finished twenty seconds behind his teammate Antonelli following the Italian’s slip-up, which cost him a podium. Fernando Alonso survived a late spin to finish seventh just over two and a quarter seconds ahead of Charles Leclerc, up until that mistake, the Aston Martin driver had driven a solid weekend.

Alonso had looked on course for eighth but gained a place as did everyone still running on the final lap when Hadjar stopped because of a puncture. Liam Lawson brought his Racing Bull home ninth as he finished just over a second and a half of Yuki Tsunoda, completing the points scorers.

Alex Albon was eleventh, he missed out on the points by five seconds, and Lewis Hamilton was ten seconds further behind. The Sauber of Gabriel Bortoletto was the final car on the lead lap the Brazilian seven seconds behind the Ferrari. Hamilton’s nightmare end to his debut season with Ferrari continues.

Franco Colapinto was nearly a second ahead of Esteban Ocon, who was nearly seven hundredths ahead of the second Alpine of Pierre Gasly. Ocon was given a five-second time penalty for a false start, his teammate Ollie Bearman retired after a ten-second stop-go penalty for an unsafe release.

Lance Stroll and Hadjar were classified seventeenth and eighteenth after retiring on the penultimate lap. Bearman retired after the stop and go effectively dropped him out of anything other than last, and Nico Hulkenberg retired after an incident with Gasly on lap six, but was not picked up on the TV feed.

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