PACE ANALYSIS: Verstappen and Norris over three tenths quicker than third-fastest Leclerc
Having bagged his ninth victory of the year and the first one in the dry since the Red Bull Ring, four-time world champion Max Verstappen sounded a positive note after Red Bull had saved his weekend with an extensive setup overhaul. F1Technical's senior writer Balazs Szabo delivers his latest analysis.
Following a low-key showing in Qatar F1 Sprint, Max Verstappen bounced back with an eye-catching performance in the main qualifying for Sunday’s Qatar Grand Prix. The newly-crowned four-time world champion looked strong from the get-go, with Red Bull having made several tweaks to his RB20 following the sprint race.
The Dutchman needed a quick lap in the dying seconds of Q3 to beat George Russell, which he was able to deliver to secure his first pole position since the Austrian Grand Prix.
However, he was stripped of his pole position for a yellow flag incident. The Dutchman was upset by the decision, but he regained the lead at the start of the race, and did not let the victory slip through his fingers despite three safety car interventions.
The four-time F1 world champion was joined on the podium by Charles Leclerc, who took second for Ferrari and by Oscar Piastri, who secured third for McLaren.
This was the 63rd win of Verstappen’s career, the second out of three editions of this Grand Prix, while for Red Bull it was their 122th triumph. Piastri took his tenth podium finish today from 45 race starts.
Although Russell started from pole position in Qatar, Verstappen and Norris jumped to the front at the start, and they soon disappeared into the distance. The two drivers were separated by around 1.6 seconds until the second safety car intervention that was deployed on Lap 34.
It was very difficult to find out which of the two was the quicker driver as Norris could immediately react when Verstappen upped his pace. On Lap 10, Verstappen dipped below the 1m26.0 mark for the first time in the 57-lap race, and Norris mimicked the Dutchman's improved pace on the same lap.
On Lap 20, the now four-time world champion upped his pace again, dipping below the 1m25s mark for the first time in the race, and Norris reacted to that on the following lap, indicating that he also has pace in reserve.
Verstappen and Norris then managed to keep their pace in the 1m24s window, with the only exception emerging on Lap 30 when Verstappen lifted on the main straight due to the yellow-flag zone while Norris failed to reduce his speed for which he received the race-deciding ten-second stop-and-go penalty.
It was terrifying to see that Verstappen and Norris were neck and neck again after the third and final safety car intervention ended. The Dutchman set a 1m24.5s on Lap 43 compared to Norris' 1m24.6s.
The next lap saw the Dutch and the British driver set a 1m23.5s and a 1m23.6s respectively, which showed once again that they had the same pace on the hards as well. However, their battle ended on the following lap as Norris was forced to serve his penalty.
The diagram provided by Formula Data Analysis highlights an interesting fact. Verstappen's boxplot is much wider than the one of Norris which is down to the fact that Verstappen constantly upped his pace across the entire race distance. Although Norris mimicked his pace until his stop-and-go penalty, but he posted three slower lap times as he fought his way through the field in the closing stages of the race.
However, Norris' boxplot also shows that he displayed ominous pace when coming back from the back of the field. The McLaren driver managed to dip below the 1m23s mark on seven laps. By contrast, the only other driver who managed to set a 1m22s lap time was Verstappen, but even the Dutch driver was only able to register one lap time below the 1m23s mark.
The two Ferrari drivers appeared to struggle for pace in the early stages of the race, but that was what the team asked for from Carlos Sainz and Charles Leclerc.
The Spaniard and the Monégasque looked after their medium in the early stages of the race to avoid front graining, but Leclerc suddenly started to push more from Lap 15, finding over eight tenths compared to his previous pace which saw him dictate similar performance to the two leading drivers and a better pace than George Russell and Oscar Piastri, the two drivers, who were directly in front of him.
Looking at the overall picture, Ferrari achieved a big improvement compared to last year's Qatar Grand Prix, showing an impressive speed both over a single lap and in high-fuel race configuration.
However, Leclerc, who was clearly the quicker Ferrari driver, still had a deficit of over three tenths per lap compared to Verstappen, showing that the Lusail International track still exposes the SF-24's weakness with its long-radius medium-speed corners.
