McLaren suffer as Verstappen wins in Qatar

Doha — Red Bull’s Max Verstappen won the Qatar Grand Prix on Sunday as McLaren and Ferrari took their Formula One constructors’ title duel down to the last race of the season in Abu Dhabi next weekend.

The win was the quadruple world champion’s ninth of the season and second in a row in Qatar.

Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc finished runner-up, 6.031 sec behind the Dutch driver, with McLaren’s Oscar Piastri third in a race punctuated by crashes and safety car periods.

McLaren’s lead was trimmed to 21 points with 44 remaining to be won and reigning champions Red Bull are now mathematically out of contention.

“Karma is a wonderful thing. You definitely did not drive unnecessarily slowly today. Great job,” said Red Bull boss Christian Horner over the team radio after Verstappen took the chequered flag.

Stewards had demoted the champion from pole position on Saturday for driving too slowly, with Mercedes’ George Russell starting from the top slot but finishing fourth.

McLaren had looked like they could wrap up the title after a one-two in the Saturday sprint but everything went awry when Lando Norris was handed a heavy 10 sec stop/go penalty for failing to slow for yellow flags.

That dropped the Briton out of the points from second but he fought back to 10th with fastest lap.

Ferrari’s Carlos Sainz was also slowed, by a puncture, finishing sixth with Alpine’s Pierre Gasly an impressive fifth.

Fernando Alonso was seventh for Aston Martin and China’s Zhou Guanyu scored Sauber’s first points of the season with eighth.

Kevin Magnussen was ninth for Haas.

Reuters