Qatar GP: McLaren’s strategy howler hands Max Verstappen crucial victory, Carlos Sainz podium makes Williams’ dreams a reality, Red Bull announce 2026 driver lineup, and more

The triple-header season finale continued at the Qatar Grand Prix on Sunday, November 30, with McLaren’s Lando Norris looking to secure the Drivers’ title in his thrilling fight with Oscar Piastri and Max Verstappen. 

But after a disastrous strategy error from McLaren, the three-way battle for the championship goes down to the wire at Abu Dhabi, with Verstappen’s win, Sainz’s surprise podium, and Red Bull’s 2026 driver lineup the other important highlights of this season’s penultimate weekend. 

Sports News Blitz’s F1 writer, Henry Eccles, takes a look at the five key talking points to come out of the Qatar GP. 

Major McLaren error ruins Oscar Piastri’s perfect weekend, while Lando Norris misses out on title opportunity

At a track he has performed well at in the past, Oscar Piastri was back in form in Qatar. 

Following McLaren’s double DSQ at Las Vegas last week, the Aussie’s title hopes were still very much alive, and after winning the Sprint from pole in Qatar, he lined up in P1 just ahead of his team-mate Lando Norris on Sunday.

At lights out, things got even better for Piastri, staying in clean air ahead of championship leader Norris - who lost second place to Verstappen - at a fast and flowing track where overtaking is almost impossible. 

It was crucial that he did too, with Norris needing just two more championship points than Piastri and Verstappen by the end of the race to wrap up the Drivers’ title.

But on Lap 7, when a collision between Pierre Gasly and Nico Hülkenberg brought out the Safety Car, disaster struck for McLaren. 

Seven laps into a 57-lap race mandated by a 25-lap stint limit due to Pirelli’s concerns over potential tyre failure, pitting for what was essentially a free stop was the logical thing to do, but neither of the McLaren drivers were called in. 

As the rest of the grid boxed, it became clear just how much of an error the Woking team had made by the time Piastri had completed his two stops, neither of which were affected by a Safety Car like McLaren had desperately hoped. 

On Lap 43, Piastri exited the pit lane in P2 just under 18 seconds behind Verstappen, a deficit he was unable to make up despite having fresher tyres in a faster car - the result means he now sits in P3 four points behind the Dutchman in the standings. 

In a post-race interview with F1 TV, McLaren CEO Zak Brown lamented his team’s costly strategy error, which left Piastri “speechless” on the radio at the chequered flag. 

“We made the wrong decision. Feel terrible for Oscar and Lando,” Brown said.

“Oscar was absolutely impeccable all weekend, so we let them down. You win and lose as a team but definitely not a great moment. Our evaluation if a Safety Car came out on that lap was clearly incorrect so we'll go back, study that, nothing we can do about it now.

"We're leading the championship but Oscar with a deficit, [we] left some points on the table so we'll just do the best we can in Abu Dhabi. We were very strong there last year."

On the other side of the garage, things were even worse for Norris. 

The Brit struggled all weekend to match Piastri’s pace, and while the Aussie was able to clear the threat from Carlos Sainz and Andrea Kimi Antonelli before his last stop, the same could not be said for Norris, who came out behind the Williams and Mercedes drivers in fifth. 

Stuck in dirty air behind Antonelli, Norris looked set for a P5 finish, but after the Italian rookie made an error on the final lap, he got ahead to rescue two more crucial points.

If the race had gone a lap longer, Norris would have also nicked the final podium spot from Carlos Sainz, but he was ultimately left to wonder what might have been on a day when victory would have handed him his first-ever Drivers’ title. 

Despite the poor result, with a 12-point lead on Verstappen, and Piastri a further four behind, the championship is still very much in Norris’ hands going into the final race at Abu Dhabi.  

But if Verstappen wins the season finale, another P4 finish would not be enough to secure the title.

He would simply have to finish on the podium in what will be the first three-way title decider since the epic showdown between Sebastian Vettel, Mark Webber, and Fernando Alonso in 2010. 

Max Verstappen’s incredible comeback continues all the way to Abu Dhabi

After securing victory last week in Las Vegas, Max Verstappen said the only reason he is still in the title fight is because of “other people’s failures,” but that fails to do his sensational second half of the season justice. 

Following F1’s return from the summer break at Zandvoort, Verstappen was 104 points off the championship lead, and while McLaren’s blunders have helped, his performances to reduce that gap to 12 have been nothing short of miraculous. 

And he has done it in a much trickier car to drive than McLaren’s MCL39, as evidenced by his disappointing P4 finish in the Sprint this weekend, which left him 25 points behind championship leader Norris. 

But the four-time world champion’s supreme opportunism was on display yet again in the main race. 

Despite qualifying P3, Verstappen took advantage of being on the cleaner side of the track to take P2 from Norris going into Turn 1.

It was a move that later gave McLaren headaches on Lap 7.

While their error effectively handed him the race win, the Dutchman’s strong pace kept him within range before McLaren’s stops, and then ahead in the latter stages despite Piastri being on fresher tyres. 

After the race, Team Principal Laurent Mekies praised the team for once again extracting the maximum out of the weekend, as well as Verstappen, who “didn’t put a foot wrong.” 

“This team had never given up, kept trying, kept developing, and cracked one thing, cracked a bit more, cracked a bit more, and eventually got the car in a better place," Mekies said. 

"[Verstappen] never gets it wrong, he never misses a start, he never misses a Turn 1, he's going to extract more out of the tyres than most people out there. 

"The team has been extraordinary at strong executions, so it is true we have benefited from our competitors' less strong executions, but please allow me to give credit to the incredible string of massively strong races, massively strong executions from the team [who] never got a call wrong."

While Norris remains the title favourite heading to Abu Dhabi, the very fact Verstappen is still in contention having been over 100 points behind in August, is not only remarkable, but ramps up the pressure on McLaren, knowing all too well that just one mistake will make the Red Bull driver a five-time world champion.

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Carlos Sainz podium secures P5 for Williams in the Constructors’ 

After a tough first half of the season, it is really starting to feel like Sainz and Williams are perfect for each other. 

Despite an impressive P5 finish for Sainz in Las Vegas, it was not expected that Williams would go particularly well in Qatar.

The Grove outfit have struggled on medium and high speed tracks similar to the Lusail International Circuit this season. 

But Sainz has been in fine form since the summer, regularly outscoring team-mate Alex Albon, and delivering huge results such as his first P3 for Williams at Baku, and repeating that feat in the Sprint at Austin. 

If anyone could get a tune out of the FW47 in Qatar, it was the Smooth Operator Sainz, who scored a point in the Sprint and P7 in qualifying on Saturday. 

As Sainz said post-quali, P7 was a “good place to be,” but after getting past George Russell and Isack Hadjar on the opening lap of the Grand Prix, the Spaniard was in an even better one. 

Then came the Safety Car, the pit lane was flooded with F1 cars but Williams were laser focused - a quick stop allowed Sainz to leapfrog Antonelli into P4, and suddenly, a podium was on the cards.

He had the pace to maintain his position, but as Sainz moved into P3, poor strategy got Norris stuck behind Antonelli in P5, and he saw the opportunity to push further still.

On the final lap, Norris was within a second of his former McLaren team-mate, who had become worried about understeer into right hand corners. 

But Sainz had done enough, he crossed the line to score his second podium finish this season, and confirm Williams’ P5 finish in the Constructors’ standings - a fantastic achievement for the Grove team. 

Reflecting on the result, Sainz said:

"I'm so happy, so proud of the whole team for what we've done today. We came into this weekend thinking it was going to be the most difficult weekend of the year, and suddenly we came out of it with a podium.

"We nailed the race pace - I was super quick, much quicker than expected. We nailed the strategy, we nailed the tyre management, nailed the start, nailed all the defending and that brought us an unexpected podium so I could not be prouder."

Team Principal James Vowles was equally delighted, saying Sainz’ result had made “a dream come true.” 

“This surpasses our expectations really and I hope it shows the world the direction we are on and the belief we have in where we are going as a result of things," Vowles said. 

"We are still here to win championships. We are a long way away from that, a long way away. But at least now the work we are doing is starting to pay off.

"I was proud of Carlos and the team when we got our first podium in Baku; the second is a dream come true, but perhaps more importantly at a track that was almost our worst last year. And we've come back, we've reinvented ourselves and the result is there for everyone to see."

Ferrari suffer worst Constructors’ finish since 2020 

Most weekends for Ferrari this season, while tough, have had at least some positives to take away, whether it be one of Charles Leclerc’s seven podiums or a strong recovery drive from Lewis Hamilton at Spa or Imola. 

But in Qatar, you would be hard pressed to find anything redeeming about Ferrari’s performance this time around. 

After both drivers failed to score points in the Sprint, Leclerc and Hamilton lined up for the main race in P10 and P18 respectively, with the former admitting he had “zero performance” in the car. 

Struggling to keep his SF-25 under control, Leclerc lost the final points position to Hülkenberg on Lap 2, but after the German’s crash with Gasly, and a puncture late on for Hadjar, the Monegasque driver crossed the line in P8. 

“It's been incredibly tough, a very frustrating weekend," Leclerc said post-race.

"We've just been nowhere from the first lap to the very last lap. I have no words. It's just very disappointing to see that amount of performance, and I just hope that we can finish on a higher note in Abu Dhabi."

Hamilton’s weekend was even worse - after qualifying P18 for both the Sprint and Grand Prix, the seven-time world champion finished P12 in the main race. 

Despite making a good start from such a lowly position, a double-stack pit stop after the Lap 7 Safety Car hurt Hamilton, with the Lusail circuit too tricky to make any significant gains. 

Regardless, Ferrari were never going to threaten their rivals on pure pace in Qatar, and with just the four points collected on Sunday, the Scuderia have confirmed their position as the fourth-best team this season - their worst Constructors’ result in five years.

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Red Bull replace Yuki Tsunoda with Isack Hadjar 

Even before any of the action was underway in Qatar, Red Bull’s decision regarding Hadjar and Yuki Tsunoda’s futures had seemingly been made.

While both Red Bull and sister team Racing Bulls remained tight-lipped over the weekend, an announcement on Tuesday confirmed that Hadjar will replace Tsunoda at Red Bull for 2026.

The news comes at just the wrong time for Tsunoda, who outqualified his team-mate Verstappen for the first time this season to start (and finish) the Sprint in P5. 

In the main qualifying, however, he was knocked out in Q3 and started the Grand Prix in P16.

The Japanese driver did well to recover P10, but it was ultimately not enough to keep his seat for 2026, although he will remain part of the Red Bull family as a reserve driver for both teams. 

Over at Racing Bulls, Hadjar was on course to keep hold of a brilliant P6 finish he achieved in qualifying, but he was forced to retire with just one lap to go due to a puncture. 

Nonetheless, the Frenchman has been a revelation this season, regularly scoring points for Racing Bulls, including his first-ever podium finish in the Netherlands, home to his 2026 team-mate Verstappen. 

In the announcement, Hadjar said: “This year with Visa Cash App Racing Bulls has been absolutely amazing, I’ve learnt a lot and secured a maiden podium. I feel I’m much better as a racing driver and a person, due to the team‘s support and preparation.

“I feel ready to go to Oracle Red Bull Racing and I am happy and proud they feel the same. It’s an awesome move, to work with the best and learn from Max is something I can’t wait for.”

In Qatar, Hadjar’s team-mate Liam Lawson recovered from a Q2 exit to finish P9 and score his third points finish in the last six Grands Prix.

The Kiwi has rebuilt his reputation since being replaced at Red Bull by Tsunoda at the start of the season, and has also been confirmed to race alongside junior F2 driver Arvid Lindblad at Racing Bulls next season. 

Team Principal Alan Permane said: “Liam has shown impressive performance and professionalism throughout this year, he has excelled when conditions have been at their hardest and we look forward to building on this in 2026, while Arvid’s rapid progression marks him as one of the standout young talents in the sport.

“Together, they form a strong and dynamic pairing, one that embodies the ambition and youthful spirit of VCARB as we enter a transformative new era for Formula 1.” 

Before all of that, however, Racing Bulls will need one more strong outing from Hadjar and Lawson to secure P6 in the Constructors’, as they currently sit just eight points ahead of Aston Martin heading into the season finale at Abu Dhabi. 

As for Tsunoda, there would be no better way to sign off at Red Bull than with a good points finish alongside Verstappen to help the team achieve P2 in the standings, although that will be a tall order with Mercedes currently 33 points ahead. 

The F1 season concludes with the three-way title fight to be decided at the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix on the weekend of December 5-7. 

The main race gets underway on Sunday, December 7, at 1pm UK time, with fans able to catch all the action on Sky Sports F1.

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