Heart-stopping finish in Abu Dhabi: Verstappen vs. Norris for the 2025 title
The fight for the 2025 championship will reach its climax in Abu Dhabi after Max Verstappen’s victory at the Qatar Grand Prix, where Lando Norris, the championship leader, finished in fourth position. Verstappen is now positioned as Norris’s main rival for the last race of the season, after Oscar Piastri’s third place in Qatar. Verstappen’s victory puts him only 12 points behind Norris in the overall standings, with a maximum of 25 points available in the final round. Piastri, now 16 points behind his teammate, expressed his frustration after the race, visibly affected by McLaren’s strategy.“Speechless,” Piastri said on the radio after the race. “I have no words.”
Oscar Piastri
The race in Qatar was marked by a safety car on lap 7, caused by a collision between Nico Hülkenberg and Pierre Gasly exiting turn 1, while they were battling for ninth position. The McLaren drivers were the only ones who did not make the most of an efficient pit stop during the safety car, a crucial decision due to the 25-lap maximum stint restriction, imposed before the race due to tire wear.“Everything is possible now!” exclaimed Verstappen after the race. “We’ll see. I don’t worry too much about that.”
Max Verstappen
Upon entering the pits on lap 7, most of the group, including Verstappen, was forced to do two 25-lap stints to the end of the race, while McLaren still had two scheduled stops when the race resumed on lap 10.
For McLaren’s strategy to work, both drivers needed to build a significant lead over Verstappen, but ultimately lacked the necessary pace.
According to the maximum stint length of 25 laps, Verstappen made his final stop on lap 32, rejoining the track just 3.2 seconds behind Norris and 7.6 seconds behind Piastri, knowing that both McLarens still had a stop pending. Piastri struggled to extend his lead over Verstappen during his second stint and therefore pitted on lap 42 to fit new tires, attempting to catch the Red Bull until the end of the race. The Australian reduced the gap to 7.9 seconds at the checkered flag, but never seemed to be in a position to win after McLaren opted not to pit during the safety car. Norris, who was evidently suffering from performance issues, made his second pit stop on lap 45, falling to fifth place behind Carlos Sainz and Kimi Antonelli. Norris caught up with Antonelli on lap 50 of 57, but stayed behind the Mercedes until the last lap, when Antonelli made a mistake and Norris overtook him.Despite getting within less than a second of Sainz at the finish line, he couldn’t put pressure on the Williams driver, who secured his second podium of his debut season with the British team.
Behind Antonelli in fifth place, George Russell finished sixth after a poor start that dropped him back positions on the last lap. Fernando Alonso took seventh place despite a spin mid-race and Charles Leclerc managed eighth place in another disappointing race weekend for Ferrari. Liam Lawson and Yuki Tsunoda secured the last points at stake in ninth and tenth position.“I am very happy, very proud of the whole team, of what we have done today because we came to this weekend thinking it was going to be the most difficult weekend of the year and suddenly we come out with a podium,” said Sainz. “We nailed the race pace. I was super fast, much faster than expected. We nailed the strategy, the tire management, the start, the defense and the management, and that gave us an unexpected podium, so I couldn’t be prouder.”
Carlos Sainz
