WINNERS

Lewis Hamilton 

A ruthless display from Lewis Hamilton on F1’s first visit to Qatar has cut his title rival Max Verstappen’s championship lead with two 🔯races remaining. 

Hamilton’s second 10/10 performance on the trot saw🎉 him convert a dominant pole position into a comfortable seventh win of thꦚe season with a lights-to-flag drive.

While Verstappen still holds a points advantage, Hamilton and Mercedes are riding a wave of momentum 🔯heading into a crucial final pair of events in the Middle East to decide the destination of this year’s world title. 

Over two gr🐼and prix weekends, Hamilton has no𝓀w successfully trimmed a 19-point deficit into just eight points. 

Repeat this level of performance two more times andꦆ an eighth world title will🍸 beckon for Hamilton. 

Max Verstappen

A five-place grid penalty threatened tꦑo deal a major blow to Verstappen’s title hopes but the Red Bull driver pulled off a brilliant recovery drive to take second behind Hamilton. 

A brave, attacking approach at the start paid off as Verstappen vaulted himself up to fourth throug🃏h the opening sequence of corners, before he swept past Pierre Gasly and Fernando Alonso to find himself behind only Hamilton after just five 🤪laps. 

💟Although he was never in contention for the win, Verstappen’s race was one of damage-limitation. Importantly, he man🐓aged to score what could end up being a crucial fastest lap bonus point to keep his championship lead at eight points. 

For now at least, Verstappen has en💦sured that he still hoꦏlds the advantage in this year’s title race. 

Fernando Alonso 

A🔯 superb drive from Alonso underlined that🅺 class is permanent as he ended a seven-year, 105-race wait for a podium in style. 

The Alpine driver capitalised on grid penaltಞies for Verstappen and Valtteri Bottas to line up third on the 💮grid and a fast start enabled him to charge past Gasly to move into second. 

Alon🦹so was powerless to resist the recovering Verstappen but pulled off a risky one-stop strategy - which compღrised of 23 laps on softs and a 34-lap stint on hards - to complete the rostrum in third place. 

It 🌳marked his first F1 podium since the 2014 Hungarian Grand Prix and capped off an excellent day for Alpine in their quest to hold onto fifth place in the constructors’ championship. 

Ferrari 

Another solid day for Ferrari, with the Italian giant continuing i♛ts recent strong form to outscore nearest rival M✨cLaren once more.

P7 and P8 - behind both Alpines and ꦿan Aston Martin - is by no means a headline-grabbing result, but it has crucially helped Ferrari strengthen its grip over third in the constructors’ standings.

Consistency has been key for Ferrari of late, while Charles Leclerc bo♒unced back from a woeful qualifying in style to finish just over a second behind teammate Carlos Sainz and complete another double points haul. 

Things would not have looked so good had McLaren’s Lando Norris not suffered a puncture that dropped him out of th𝓀e top five and down to ninth at the c♛hequered flag. 

Nevertheless,𒁏 Ferrari can ultimately come away from Qatar satisfie🦋d with the championship picture. 

Lance Stroll 

An impressive drive from Lance🌠 Stroll went somewhat under the radar as the Canadian rose from 11th on the grid to record his best result of the season in sixth. 

Stroll was faultless on his way🔯 to a morale-boosting result for both him and his Aston Martꦓin team after spending the previous three races outside of the points. 

Stroll may have claimed the hea꧃dline result for Aston Martin, but a worthy shoutout is in order for his tea🤪mmate Sebastian Vettel. 

The four-time world champion recovered well from an awfu🦩l start to complete the top 10 and seal what was only the team’s third two-car points finish of the season. 

Stroll has moved to within nine points of Vettel in the championship standings and is now the highest-ꦑplaced driver without a podium finish in 2021. 

LOSERS 

Pirelli (and the puncture victims) 

Pirelli is feeling th🐠e heat after four drivers suffe🌜red concerning tyre failures during Qatar’s debut grand prix. 

Bottas, Norris, and Williams pair George Russell and𝕴 Nicholas Latifi all experienced sudden tyre explosions in the race, with Latifi forced into an immediate re🙈tirement as a result. 

The rest were able to recover to th♏e pits and return to the race, though Bottas’ day did eventually end early due to damage sustained to his Mercedes car. 

Worryingly, all the drivers reported 𓆉they had little or no warning their tyres were about to blow, with Norris calling the failures “dangerous” and calling for Pirelli to make better tyres. 

The Italian tyre manufacturer has launched an inve🍬stigat🌟ion into the blow outs in a bid to find out answers.

Valtteri Bottas

A torrid race day for Bottas 𝓡ended in retirement after a dramatic puncture ruin♎ed his Qatar GP. 

The Finn fell from sixth on the grid to 11th with an awful start, but following slow initial progress, he began to fi🍷ght his way back into po🀅dium contention. 

Running long on a one-stop, Bottas’ front-left tyre suddenly burst coming out of the final corner heading onto lap 33. Bottas had to complete a full lap before reaching th꧋e pits for a tyre change, by which point hisꦏ race was all but done. 

Having picked up damage to his Mercedes, Bottas was eventual𓄧ly called in to retire, marking his fourth DNF of a luckless 2021 season. 

AlphaTauri 

Gasly was licking his lips at the prospect of his highest-ever starting spot on the F1 grid after being promoted to the front-row alongside H꧋amilton when penalties were applied. 

But Gasly’s race quickly fell apart. After being shuffled down to fourth iﷺn the opening laps by Alonso and Verstappen, the Frenchman’s plummet continued. Gasly eventually slipped out of the top 10 and finished 11th. 

Things weren’t much better f🌟or teammate Yuki Tsunoda, who also🍰 fell out of points contention despite starting eighth. 

AlphaTauri’s lack of race p🀅ace - which Gasly described as “shocking” - came as a real surprise following its impressive one-lap performa🍃nce in qualifying. 

Having arrived in Qatar level on points wi🌃th Alpine in the P5 fight, the Faenza outfit goes into the final two rounds lagging the equivalent of a race win (2ౠ5 points) behind. 

Daniel Ricciardo 

Daniel Ricciardo will not look back on the F1’s first-ever race in Qatar - or the last triple-header of 2021 for that matter - fondly, having struggled home to 12th - just two places higher than w🐎here he started Sunday’s GP. 

Ricciardo revealed that an unexplained fuel issue, and issues with the re⭕ar-end of his McLaren, ultimately hampered his hopes of scoring points as he missed out on the top 10 for the third week on the trot. 

With teammate ♑Norris only able to salvage two points, McLaren is left needing a miracle ꦬto retain third place in the constructors’ championship this year, after falling a whopping 39.5 points behind Ferrari. 

F1’s officiating 

F1’s📖 officials have had some big calls to make over the past two race weekends and both events have been overshadowed by controversy and painfully slow decision🉐-making.

In🍷 both Brazil and Qatar, fans were left not knowing hoꦑw the grid would line up until just before the races. 

At Interlagos, there was a lengthy wait to find out that Hamilton had been disqualified from qualifying, while at Losail, decisions over yellow flag breaches in Q3 only dropped with 90 minute𝔉s to go until lights out. The decision to penalise Verstappen prompted a rant from Red Bull team principal Christian Horner that led to an official warning over his criticism of a marshal. 

Little progress has been made over F1’s ‘racing rules’ row either, with Ham🤡ilton saying the debate over what is and what is not acceptable is still “not clear”, amid calls for a permanentไ set of stewards. 

Cynics pointed out late calls over verdicts could have been deliberate in a bid to create extra drama to the s꧟how. Either way, the delays seemed needless and were highly frustrating for fans.