Verstappen wins in Qatar, title to be decided in Abu Dhabi

Max Verstappen (Red Bull) won the Qatar Grand Prix, the penultimate round of the Formula 1 championship, reports BTA. Thus, he recorded a tactical victory for the Red Bull team and left the outcome of the title to the last start in Abu Dhabi. Max finished first in Qatar, ahead of McLaren's Oscar Piastre by 7.995 seconds, while his teammate and leader in the standings Lando Norris finished only fourth behind Carlos Sainz.

Piastre made an excellent start and retained his first place in qualifying, which was another step towards completing a dominant weekend for the Australian in Qatar. Verstappen also got off to a great start and overtook Norris at the first corner, maintaining a lead of one and a half seconds over the Briton for the next few laps at Lusail.

The appearance of the safety car began to stir up the teams' strategy from the seventh lap, when everyone made their first pit stop, but without three cars - the two McLarens and that of Esteban Ocon. This later turned out to be the big tactical mistake. The race continued on the 11th lap, when Piastre led by over two seconds on Norris, and Verstappen was almost six seconds behind.

This made the stops of the McLaren cars crucial for the races. At Lusail, the lifespan of the medium compound is just over 23 laps and logically Piastre pitted on the 24th, and Norris followed him on the 25th. Both barely managed to squeeze in front of the main line, led by Fernando Alonso.
After the two McLarens, it was soon time for a driver change with early stops. Verstappen made his second and final pit stop on lap 33, and the McLarens came in ten laps later and gave up first place to the Dutchman. This meant that they could only win by competitive overtaking against the reigning world champion.

Such maneuvers did not come to fruition and Red Bull recorded a key tactical victory against the McLaren team, which will regret the missed chance to pit under the safety car. Not only that, but Lando Norris also failed to overtake Carlos Sainz and finished fourth behind the Spaniard, which could have disastrous consequences in the title fight.

Norris still leads the general classification with 408 points, but Verstappen is now ahead of Piastre with 396 to 392. The Dutchman can thus win his fifth consecutive world title with 12 points more than Norris in the last race of the year in a week in Abu Dhabi. The difference between first and fourth place, as it was today, is 13 points.

Fifth place today remained for Kimi Antonelli, while his Mercedes teammate George Russell took sixth position. The top ten was formed by Alonso from Aston Martin, Charles Leclerc from Ferrari, Liam Lawson from Racing Bulls and his teammate Yuki Tsunoda. Lewis Hamilton's tough weekend continued and he was only 12th in the second Ferrari.