Summing up
So, Max Verstappen joins Jack Brabham, Jackie Stewart, Niki Lauda and Nelson Piquet on three world titles, with only five drivers ahead of them in F1 history. He didn’t win today’s sprint race but, in zipping through the field to take second, still effortlessly drove like a champion. The Dutchman is firm favourite to celebrate it in style with victory in tomorrow’s Qatar Grand Prix. Plaudits too for Oscar Piastri, who underlined his potential with sprint victory, losing then regaining the lead and winning well.
Stay on the site for more reports and reaction, and join us again tomorrow for lap by lap coverage of the big race in Lusail. Thanks for following. Bye.
Verstappen speaks: “It’s a fantastic feeling,” he says. “It’s been an incredible year, with a lot of great races, and so enjoyable to be part of it with that group of people, We’ll keep on pushing [for more titles] and try to do the best we can. It was an exciting race today – a shame about the safety cars but it was fun out there.
“Piastri drove a great race – he was on the medium tyres, which had more grip at the beginning. I tried my best to catch up but couldn’t manage it. I’m enjoying the moment and hopefully we can keep that momentum going.”
Along comes race-winner Piastri. “I’m very happy,” chirps the rookie. “I thought we were were in trouble when we saw the soft [tyre] guys come through at there start – the safety cars were my friend today. When Max got behind me it was a challenge but I thought we did a good job with the tyres and everything. And anything you can try and learn for tomorrow will be important as well.
The stewards are now poring over the footage to look for track-limit and any other infringements after an incident-packed race.
Here’s a report:
How they finished
1 Oscar Piastri (McLaren)
2 Max Verstappen (Red Bull)
3 Lando Norris (McLaren)
4 George Russell (Mercedes)
5 Lewis Hamilton (Mercedes)
6 Carlos Sainz (Ferrari)
7 Charles Leclerc (Ferrari)
8 Alexander Albon (Williams)
“Max, you are a three-time champion!” bellow his team. “I don’t know what too say,” responds Verstappen. “What a year, such a car, and thanks to everyone here.”
That was a lively old denouement to that spring, with little battles all over the place. But Piastri proved his potential with that win
Max Verstappen wins the world title as Oscar Piastri wins sprint
Lap 19/19: Norris reins in Russell to move into third in a lively final lap but Piastri can’t be caught. Verstappen is second behind him and winning the title in pretty smart style.
Lap 18/19: Hamilton is in the zone, storming past Alonso and forcing Leclerc wide but not managing to overhaul him. This is a hell of a little battle. Piastri still leads and now by 2sec
Lap 17/19: No sooner had I said the Ferraris were fending off Norris than he passes both of them brilliantly, as McLaren spy a double podium. Lewis Hamilton meanwhile is moving through the field, overhauling Gasly to take eighth.
Lap 16/19: Russell has no answer to an attack from Verstappen and concedes second place to the champion-elect on the straight. The Ferraris of Sainz and Leclerc are blocking Norris effectively in fourth and fifth. The soft-tyre cars are thriving more in this safety car pockmarked race.
Lap 15/19: Russell stays with Piastri as racing resumes and Verstappen feels some pressure from Sainz but holds him off. But Piastri is looking assured now out front, and leading by around 1.4 sec.
Lap 14/19: What a scrappy race this is, as the safety car period ends. This has given us unhelpfully few pointers to tomorrow’s race, in terms of conditions and car wear and tear.
Lap 13/19: Verstappen’s team tell him they’ve seen some surface damage but tell him to keep on to the end. He’s third, behind Piastri and a suddenly-struggling Russell. Sainz is fourth and Norris fifth.
Lap 12/19: It seemed to begin with Hulkenburg going round the outside, Ocon moving across to defend his position, leaving Perez with no room, and off they span. And we have the safety car.
George Russell bellows “the tyres are done”. But he’ll be last if he pits. Hulkenburg has pitted after all that drama.
Updated
Max Verstappen to win title as Sergio Perez crashes out
Perez has some kind of coming-together with Ocon and they both career off into the gravel. This is going to hand Verstappen the title tonight!
Updated
Lap 11/19: A good lap for McLaren, as Piastri chips away at Russell’s lead and regains the lead, and Norris moves ahead of Leclerc
Lap 10/19: Verstappen wins his battle with Sainz too to move into a podium position.
Race standings: 1 Russell 2 Piastri 3 Verstappen 4 Sainz 5 Leclerc 6 Norris 7 Alonso 8 Ocon 9 Hulkenburg 10 Perez
Lap 9/19: Verstappen is surely going to win it tonight, as he passes Leclerc with ease early on lap nine to move into fourth, and he’s on Sainz’s tail now. That would bring him five points in the championship.
Lap 8/19: Perez has now drifted out of the top 10, to 11th, one place ahead of Lewis Hamilton as Russell looks to stretch his advantage while conditons are in his favour. He now leads by around 1.5sec, as Verstappen gains on Leclerc.
Lap 7/19: Russell, who’d been keeping it slow behind the safety car, cooling down Piastri’s tyres, kicks clear once again to a 1.3sec lead, as Alonso overhauls Ocon going into turn one to move into seventh.
Updated
Lap 6/19: The safety car is ending and we’re about to race again. Some difficulties with grip being reported by various cars with the softer tyres, Verstappen among them, as Logan Sergeant makes his despondent way off the track after being the second driver to come a cropper in the early stages.
Lap 5/19: One of the upshots of that Alonso-Norris battle, and the latter’s successful repelling of the attack, is that Ocon nipped in ahead of Alonso into seventh.
Lap 4/19: It’s all happening as Logan Sargeant also spins off into the gravel, and our old pal the safety car is back out again.
Here’s the current standings: 1 Russell 2 Piastri 3 Sainz 4 Leclerc 5 Verstappen 6 Norris 7 Ocon 8 Alonso
Lap 3/19: Alonso tries to attack Norris on the bend but can’t quite reel him in on the first attempt as a fearsome battle develops, and Russell battles with Piastri and seizes the lead when he spies a gap on a corner!
Looking at Verstappen’s start again, he was overhauled by Russell almost immediately and got boxed in. But Pérez had it even worse, losing two places in the early jostling. The champion’s down to fifth
Lap 1/19: Safety car already! Liam Lawson spun off the track towards the rear and sharply into the gravel
Updated
Lights out and away we go!
Piastri and Russell get a great start, Verstappen boxed in. Norris blunders and slips to sixth
Updated
They’re in position and off on the formation lap … the top three on the grid starting on medium compound tyres, the three behind them on soft compounds. Will they last?
Updated
Fun fact: It’s more than a decade since we last had two McLarens on the front row of any F1 grid. “There’s no better place to start so I’m looking forward to it – hopefully we both get a good start and knock it down from there,” Piastri says nonchalantly.
Updated
George Russell, starting in fourth, has admitted that Pirelli are “really concerned about the tyres”, which may impact his chances of hauling his way to the front. He also raised questions about whether one of Verstappen’s laps exceeded limits but Christian Horner’s just been on to say that Red Bull have heard none of it.
Updated
On Sky, a word is grabbed from Verstappen as he makes his way down to his car. He is looking forward to “an interesting race” given that he starts behind the McLarens, but he’s confident he has a better car though acknowledges a bit needs to be kept back for tomorrow’s big race.
Inevitably, when there’s petro-state flesh-pressing to be done, David Beckham is at Lusail, which is of course in the shadow of the stadium that hosted the men’s World Cup final last year.
Of course, Verstappen may not need even those three points, if second-placed Sergio Pérez continues to toil. He starts in eighth and needs to finish in the top three to keep the title race alive. And the word “alive” is doing some extremely heavy lifting there. Let’s face it, we’re here for a coronation.
Here’s the grid:
SPRINT STARTING GRID 📊
— Formula 1 (@F1) October 7, 2023
The provisional starting grid for #F1Sprint is looking spicy! 🔥#QatarGP #F1 pic.twitter.com/Jo0Icqdlim
Updated
Let’s have a bit more on sprint qualifying from earlier, when Verstappen was pushed back to third on the grid by Oscar Piastri, embellishing a fine debut season and his McLaren teammate Lando Norris. George Russell was fourth while Lewis Hamilton was way back in 12th. Qualifying was also delayed by tyre-safety concerns, which may have implications for the Grand Prix tomorrow
Here’s PA Media’s report
Max Verstappen will begin his quest to win the world championship from third for Saturday’s sprint race in Qatar as Oscar Piastri took a surprise pole position. Piastri saw off team-mate Lando Norris as McLaren secured a front-row lockout.
Lewis Hamilton was knocked out of Q2 and qualified only 12th in his Mercedes for the 19-lap dash, which gets under way at 8:30pm local time (6:30pm BST).
Verstappen will wrap up his third consecutive title if he finishes sixth or better, or if Red Bull team-mate Sergio Pérez fails to finish inside the top three in the sprint at the Lusail International Circuit. Pérez qualified only eighth on yet another scruffy outing for the struggling Mexican.
A day after taking top spot for the start of Sunday’s 57-lap main event, Verstappen, who has dominated all year, saw his first lap in Q3 deleted for exceeding track limits at Turn 5. And the 26-year-old Dutchman was unable to do enough on his final run to usurp Piastri, finishing two tenths behind the rookie Australian.
Norris was in the running for first place but he ran wide at the last corner and failed to improve on his earlier effort. George Russell finished fourth for Mercedes – four tenths behind Piastri – and ahead of Carlos Sainz and Charles Leclerc, who took fifth and sixth respectively for Ferrari.
Sprint qualifying at a windswept Lusail – 18 miles north of Doha – was delayed amid fears over the safety of the tyres. The running had been due to start at 4pm local time (2pm BST), but was delayed by 20 minutes following revisions to the track limits.
The drivers took part in an additional 10 minutes of practice to familiarise themselves with the changes made to the track at turns 12 and 13 prior to qualifying.
Formula One’s governing body, the FIA, said “a separation in the sidewall between the topping compound and the carcass cords” were discovered on the Pirelli tyres following yesterday’s one-hour running.
The federation believe the problem is likely to have been caused by a number of the high kerbs used at the circuit.
An emergency summit was staged in the build-up to qualifying with the drivers assured they would not be put in harm’s way.
Additional analysis will take place following today’s sprint race and further action – which will include three mandatory tyre stops – may be taken for Sunday’s grand prix.
Lance Stroll shoved his British performance coach and stormed out of a television interview after he was eliminated from Q1 in Friday’s running.
And the under-pressure Canadian fell at the first hurdle again on Saturday, one place better off in 16th.Stroll’s Aston Martin team-mate Fernando Alonso, who also saw his best effort in qualifying chalked off for exceeding track limits, lines up in ninth.
Preamble
Evening everyone. Clinching a Formula One world title at a Saturday evening sprint in a sportswashing petro-state feels a bit like ending a five-Test Ashes series with a T20 thrash in Sharjah. But we are where we are, and we assemble tonight to, in all probability, crown an imperious champion. Max Verstappen needs only to finish in the top six of today’s 19-lap tear-up to clinch a third successive world title.
It’s never been in doubt this year, the superiority of Verstappen’s car and racecraft making him untouchable. It will also be Red Bull’s sixth drivers’ and constructors’ championship double – that gauntlet remains thrown-down for rivals.
Verstappen goes into today’s sprint race third on the grid after this afternoon’s qualification, with Oscar Piastri on pole, so let’s hope for some tasty no-holds-barred racing over tonight’s designated hour. Let’s burn some rubber. Lights out 6.30pm.
How they stand:
1 Max Verstappen (Red Bull) 400pts
2 Sergio Pérez (Red Bull) 223
3 Lewis Hamilton (Mercedes) 190
4 Fernando Alonso (Aston Martin) 174
5 Carlos Sainz (Ferrari) 150
6 Charles Leclerc (Ferrari) 135
7 Lando Norris (McLaren) 115
8 George Russell (Mercedes) 115
9 Oscar Piastri (McLaren) 57
10 Lance Stroll (Aston Martin) 47
