Things we learned from the Qatar Grand Prix

F1 Grand Prix, GP Qatar, Losail International Circuit

A high-speed track, pit-stops galore and extremely hot conditions made last Sunday's Qatar Grand Prix one of the most challenging race in recent years. F1Technical's senior writer Balázs Szabó analyses the 57-lap brutally challenging race at the Lusail circuit.

Third title - Max Verstappen clinched his 49th victory overall, and 14th in this Formula 1 season. But there were more important things for the Dutchman as he won his third drivers’ crown on the bounce with his second-placed finish in the F1 Qatar Sprint.

Verstappen joined Juan Manuel Fangio, Michael Schumacher, Sebastian Vettel and Lewis Hamilton in winning three consecutive World Championships, and he is the sixth three-time world champion in F1 history, joining the group of Niki Lauda, Jack Brabham, Jackie Stewart, Ayrton Senna and Nelson Piquet.

Deleted laps and penalties – After the Austrian Grand Prix that saw race stewards investigate over a thousands of track limits infringements, the Qatar Grand Prix also led to a high number of issues regarding track limits. The limits set out ahead of the weekend had already caused issues on Friday with Sergio Perez, Lando Norris and Oscar Piastri having lost crucial laps, but the new limits induced by the tyre issues made things even more complicated.

Chrarles Leclerc and Lance Stroll were handed out time penalties after the Sprint race while a total of 51 lap times were deleted during the grand prix. Four drivers handed out multiple time penalties during Losail race.

Sergio Perez and Pierre Gasly tallied the highest figure, with both earning 15 seconds worth of penalties by the end of the race. Lance Stroll and Alexander Albon were issued a 10-second time penalty for two offences apiece.

Short race – After an eye-catching comeback in the Sprint race on Saturday, Lewis Hamilton endured misfortunes at the start of the second-ever Qatar Grand Prix. The Briton started the 57-lap race on the soft compound and performed a great getaway from the line, but he made contact with his team-mate George Russell coming into the first corner of the Lusail track.

It was only the sixth time that Hamilton retired on the opening lap of a race in his F1 career and the first time since Belgium 2022.

The seven-time world champion crashed out into the gravel trap and was unable to get his Mercedes W14 going again. After climbing out of his car, he walked over the live track to make his way back to the pits.

The stewards have launched an investigation and decided to reprimand Hamilton for crossing the track. Furthermore, the stewards dished out a non-driving reprimand and a €50,000 fine, €25,000 of which is suspended for the remainder of the 2023 season providing there is no further breach of similar nature.

Sainz’s race-ending woes – For Ferrari, the Qatar Grand Prix was a race which was very much a case of damage limitation, given that Leclerc’s was the only Ferrari, after a fuel system problem on Carlos Sainz’s 55 car meant he was unable to line up on the grid.

Getting spicy - Following their double podium finishes both in Saturday's sprint race and in Sunday's main race, McLaren find themselves only 11 points behind Aston Martin in the battle for fourth in the constructors' championship. With five more races to go in 2023, Aston Martin need to get their act together if they want to cling on to fourth place in the teams' standings which has looked secure until McLaren's extensive upgrade package had arrived in summer.

Pit stops – McLaren have not only secured a double podium finish in Qatar, but their crew pit came out on top when it came down to pit stop performance. With a pit stop of 1.8s, the Woking-based squad set a new world record time - faster than Red Bull in Brazil 2019 (1.82 seconds). ). And this despite the fact that the new 18-inch tires introduced in 2022 have made it much harder to chase times in the pit lane.

Interestingly, Ferrari were also extremely fast, completing one of their tyre changes in just 1.93s which was also incredibly close to the previous record of 1.82s. McLaren had another quick tyre swap that required only 2.00s.

Driver of the Day – Oscar Piastri has not only clinched his second consecutive podium finish in Losail, but he was also voted as Driver of the Day. The Melbourne-born driver received 27.9 per cent of the votes, followed by George Russell, who made a sensational comeback to finish P4 following his first-corner incident at the start of the race.

Lando Norris finished third in the fans’ survey, followed by Max Verstappen and Charles Leclerc.

Fastest lap - Max Verstappen drove a commanding race, and his victory was never in doubt. On lap 56, the Dutchman clocked the fastest race lap with a time of 1:24.319 to score the extra bonus point.

Lando Norris and Oscar Piastri set the second and third fastest lap respectively, but they were both half a second adrift of Verstappen’s benchmark.

Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc took it easy during his final stint, but he picked up his speed on the final tour of the race when his team realized that George Russell had put himself on the verge of the time penalty for exceeding track limits. The Monégasque quickly started to light up the timing screens and posted a 1m24.922s which became the fourth-fastest lap of the race, just a fraction behind the McLarens.

Highlighting the fact that the Qatar Grand Prix was race in which tyre management played absolutely no room was that two other drivers det their quickest lap on the last lap. Fernando Alonso put in a 1m26.045s in his Aston Martin on Lap 57 with the same lap having seen Alex Albon post a 1m26.666s in his Williams.

Parc fermé – The Qatar Grand Prix weekend turned out to be a nightmare event for Sergio Perez. The Mexican struggled for pace in qualifying, and ended the sprint race on Saturday beached in the gravel trap.

The crash that left his Red Bull extensively damaged forced the Milton Keynes-based team to make extensive changes to Perez’s car which was effectively a third car. The Mexican was therefore required to start the race from the pit lane.

First win – Following an impressive performance in the Spa F1 Sprint, Oscar Piastri took his maiden F1 win in any format in the Sprint. This was McLaren’s second victory in the last 11 years, after Daniel Ricciardo’s win in Monza in 2021 ended a drought that stretched back to 2012.

Pit stops – Following issues with the tyres, the FIA decided to impose a maximum limit of 18 on the number of laps that could be completed by any set of tyres in the race.

The decision was based on the findings that Pirelli had presented the FIA. The analysis of the tyre sets showed both on Friday and Saturday night that there was a possibility of micro tears in the sidewall, between the topping compound and the carcass cords because of the impact generated from repeatedly driving over the kerbs at some corners. This meant that three pit stops would be required for a driver to complete the 57 laps race distance.

For the start, the majority of drivers went with the Medium. The exceptions were Lewis Hamilton, Valtteri Bottas, Kevin Magnussen and Liam Lawson, who preferred to start on the Soft, while Sergio Perez, starting from pit-lane, fitted a set of Hard. Apart from these drivers, only two other – George Russell and Zhou Guanyu – used the red-walled tyres in the remainder of the race.

Alfa Romeo’s best result – Alfa Romeo have completed their best race weekend so far in 2023 after Valtteri Bottas and Zhou Guanyu finished eighth and ninth in the 57-lap race. The Swiss outfit collected a total of six points, increasing their tally to 16 points. It was a crucial result for them as they leapfrogged Haas in Teams’ Standings and they now hold a four-point lead from the American team.

The other teams to have scored with both cars were Red Bull and McLaren while Ferrari, Mercedes, Aston Martin and Alpine collected points with only a single car.