Max Verstappen kept his championship hopes alive in Qatar with his seventh victory of 2025, as rival McLaren tripped over its own feet and threw away an easy win. The F1 Qatar Grand Prix victory, combined with McLaren’s error, finds the reigning four-time champion just 12 points behind leader Lando Norris with one race to go.
“We made the right call there to box, so I’m very happy with that,” said Verstappen. “We knew at the end that we just had to do our best possible stint. After the safety car, they went flat out and I had to manage my tires a bit but I think overall in the race we weren’t too bad in pace. We are in it and we will keep it interesting.”
The key to the victory turned out to be tire supplier Pirelli mandating a maximum of 25 laps per tire set after an early safety car, following a collision on Lap 7. The pair of McLarens didn’t stop, while the remainder of the field did – save for Esteban Ocon in one of the Haas cars, leaving Piastri and Norris needing to make two more pit stops, with the other drivers only having one left.
It seemed an odd choice as it put the leading McLaren of polesitter and comfortable early leader Piastri behind the eight ball for the race win. In the end, he could only manage second.
A double stack pit stop by McLaren, under the safety car, would have delivered an easy win to Piastri, who ran away from the field in the early laps. On the other hand, a stop under the safety car would have lost Norris several positions as he waited for his teammate to get service before getting his own tires.
“We will discuss it as a team,” Piastri said bluntly after being asked about the decision not to pit under the safety car. “It’s pretty gut wrenching to be honest. I feel like I drove probably the best weekend I have this year – if not in F1 – so to not have the result is painful. [In Abu Dhabi], I will just try to drive how I did this weekend – that’s all I can do. But I need a lot of things to go in my direction [to win the championship].”
Had McLaren stopped with the other cars, presumably Piastri would have cruised to the win, allowing him and not Verstappen to be the main challenger to Norris. Even a simple swap of Piastri with Verstappen would’ve had him only 11 points behind Norris with Verstappen third and 19 behind.
Instead, Piastri goes into the final race as the underdog. Norris leads the drivers standings with 408 points, while Verstappen sits second, on 396, and Piastri third, on 392. With 25 points on the line in the final race in Abu Dhabi, the title will go down to the wire.
“I feel good [going into the final race],” said Norris, who finished fourth. “This was not my best day, but it is what it is. The car was good, Oscar finished second and was very quick, so nothing to complain about.”
A superb performance by Carlos Sainz almost got lost in the title drama as the Williams driver scored his second podium of 2025 after also benefiting from McLaren’s stumble. He welcomed the top-three result on a weekend that the team didn’t think would go its way.
“It’s very difficult to explain because, coming into the weekend, we expected to struggle and be far off the top-10 and all of a sudden, at the beginning of the weekend, we were competitive,” he said. “I’m so proud of the team and the progress we’ve made throughout the year. Today, everything was perfect: the start, the strategy, the pit stops, the execution, the tire management, the communication – we nailed everything.”
On Saturday, Piastri closed the gap to Norris by two points after he led from start to finish in the Sprint race, while his teammate ended the day in third.
As for Canadian Lance Stroll, he experienced another weekend to forget, ending the race 17th after finishing 19th in Saturday’s Sprint race. His teammate Fernando Alonso took seventh in the race and delivered the same result in the Sprint.
