The insatiable Max Verstappen celebrated winning his fourth world title the previous week in Las Vegas with a victory in Qatar. A ninth victory this year with which he laughed at everything and everyone: the Dutchman made nothing of the absurd penalty that left him without the polewas better at the start than George Russell, and overcame the punctures and interruptions of three safety cars and the attacks of an aggressive Lando Norris who ended up penalized and 10th.
“It was a good race, the car was much better in the qualy. This track is very fun and has a lot of grip. It had been a long time since we were competitive in the dry and I am very proud of the team for having come back,” explained the Dutchman.
Carlos Sainz, bothered by a puncture, finished sixth and Fernando Alonso, seventh, in a good final stretch of the Lusail race.
fruitful exit
Verstappen minimizes the grid penalty by taking first place from Russell at the start, with Norris behind him
The test started in Lusail with a change in the grid, with Race Direction sanctioning Max Verstappen at the stroke of midnight with the loss of a position for “driving unnecessarily slow” and supposedly hindering Russell. So the Dutchman lost the pole, which passed to the Englishman from Mercedes.
A strange, unprecedented sanction, which deprived the four-time champion of returning from the first painting since the end of June in Austria. Curiously, the previous time he had set pole (in Spa), he was also unable to start first due to a 10-position penalty.
The impetuous champion cared little. At the start, the Red Bull, still starting on the dirty side, matched up on the 400 meters of straight with the Mercedes, Max braked later and conquered the first corner earlier to snatch the lead from Russell. Norris also slipped past him to take second and start chasing Verstappen. Behind, Leclerc rose to fourth place by winning the game against Piastri, and Sainz went from 7th to 6th. Alonso stayed the same, 8th.
The race was neutralized in the first lap due to an exit from the track by Ocon, Hulkenberg and Colapinto. It was relaunched in the fifth with a pull from Verstappen. Piastri took advantage of Leclerc’s slipstream to overtake him and position himself fourth, in the middle of the McLaren-Ferrari constructors’ fight.
Alonso also lost ground, from 8th to 12th, surpassed by Hamilton, Tsunoda, Magnussen and Gasly. “The speed on the straight is worrying,” the Asturian complained on the radio.
Alonso bitterly lamented the top speed problem of his Aston Martin, which caused him to lose four positions at once. “Two years with the same fucking problem on the straights,” the Spaniard exploded on the radio in a message that left the green team in a bad light.
Decisive tires
On lap 34, the double puncture of Sainz and Hamilton precipitated everyone’s stops and the classification was shaken
The speed of the Red Bull was not a problem for Verstappen, who controlled Norris, 2s away (v. 12/57). The position that was most in danger was Russell’s third, stalked by Piastri’s McLaren, despite the fact that he suffered a slight off-track. Those from Woking were chasing a double podium to finish off the Constructors’ title against a Ferrari that did not go beyond 5th and 6th places.
While the battles for the noble positions were being debated, Alonso took advantage of the problems of Tsunoda’s RB to gain a position (11th) with a spectacular outside. In this way he took revenge for the speed deficiencies of his car.
While Verstappen distanced himself with 2.6s of safety over Norris, a change of script in the race was precipitated. On lap 34, Hamilton and Sainz punctured the left front tire at the same time, supposedly for stepping on the remains of a fallen mirror on the track that Bottas’s Sauber had shattered.
All the teams accelerated their tire changes, so there was a dance of positions. Sainz and Hamilton were the first to stop, but a safety car came out next and the stop was free for the rest. The classification looked like this: Verstappen, Norris, Leclerc (gained 2 places), Piastri, Pérez, Gasly, Russell, Sainz 8th (lost 2), Zhou and Alonso 10th (with medium, faster tires).
coup d’état
After the appearance of the third safety car, Race Direction decreed a ‘stop and go’ penalty and 10 seconds for Norris; they ruined his day
The resumption of the race on lap 40 was spectacular, with all the cars attacking each other. Norris, very aggressive, put Verstappen in trouble, who came out of the last corner very badly and had to corner the Englishman to avoid being overtaken. Leclerc and Piastri also had a tough time for third position, which the Monegasque defended very well. The restart took Pérez and Hülkenberg, with separate spins, off the track, and again a safety car, the third (v. 40).
The race was restarted on lap 43. Verstappen opened more space to avoid Norris’s attack, and the Englishman suffered harassment from Leclerc. The race stewards delivered a coup d’état to the race: they decreed a 10-second “stop and go” penalty on Norris (26.5s in total) for not reducing speed under the yellow flag. The Englishman paid the penalty on lap 46 and went to 15th position. What a stick.
Verstappen was left without a threatening shadow. He had his immediate pursuer, Leclerc, 3.5s behind with 11 laps ahead. Piastri climbed to the third place on the podium, with Russell behind.
Nothing would change in the final stretch. Norris was able to climb minimally, up to 10th place to earn a point for McLaren, and Fernando Alonso improved his position, seventh, behind Carlos Sainz, annoyed by the puncture.
In the fight for the Constructors’ title, McLaren saved the day with Piastri’s third place, but Ferrari closed in by 30 to 21 points. Everything will be decided in Abu Dhabi in the last round.
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