Max Verstappen has won the 2023 Formula 1 world championship after finishing the Qatar sprint second behind first-time winner Oscar Piastri.
Verstappen started third on the grid but needed only to prevent teammate Sergio Perez from outscoring him by six points to seal the deal in the 62-mile sprint.
Polesitter Piastri took the lead thanks to a sizzling start, with soft-tire gambler George Russell slotting into second ahead of Ferrari teammates Carlos Sainz and Charles Leclerc.
Verstappen got a poor start and dropped to fifth after being crowded wide off the track by a slower-starting Lando Norris, but his battle to move forward was halted almost immediately by a safety car to collect Liam Lawson’s AlphaTauri — beached in the stones at Turn 2 due to a snap of oversteer on the low-grip track.
Piastri couldn’t shake Russell at the restart, and a wide approach to Turn 6 left the door fractionally ajar to a deep dive from the Mercedes driver to take the lead, the soft tires outgunning the McLaren’s mediums.
The race was slowed again before the lead battle could really get going, this time for the spun-off Logan Sargeant at Turn 7, and at the resumption Russell gapped the field by more than a second, keeping himself safely out of DRS range.
Russell and his fellow soft-tire gamblers rapidly began to suffer for their choice of rubber.
By lap nine, with the help of DRS, Verstappen was easily through on both soft-shod Ferrari drivers into third, and one lap later Piastri had closed back onto Russell’s gearbox and was comfortably through into the lead into the first turn of lap 11.
Russell radioed his team frantically that his tires were done and to consider a pit stop when the safety car was deployed a third time for a three-car crash between Esteban Ocon, Nico Hulkenberg and sole title rival Perez.
Hulkenberg was sandwiched by Ocon on his inside and Perez on his outside into Turn 2. The Alpine hadn’t registered he was battling a pair of cars to his right side and attempted to take the racing line in the braking zone but instead struck the front-left tyre of the Haas. The Haas in turn knocked the Red Bull Racing machine, sending all three spinning off the road. Hulkenberg returned to the pits with race-ending damage, while Ocon and Perez had their races ended, beached in the gravel.
With the Mexican unable to score, the title was decided in Verstappen’s favor with eight laps still to run.
The race resumed on lap 14 with Piastri in the lead, and by the end of that tour Verstappen was pressuring Russell for second, forcing the Briton to concede the place into the first turn of lap 16.
The gap to the lead stood at 2.6s with four laps remaining, but Verstappen could reduce the margin by only 0.6s in his first two laps.
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Piastri stabilized the gap expertly, losing only another 0.2s to claim his first race win in Formula 1, with Verstappen doing more than enough to claim his third world title from second.
“A fantastic feeling,” Verstappen said. “It’s been an incredible year, a lot of great races.
“I’m super proud of the job of the team. It’s just been so enjoyable to be part of that group of people.
“Today was quite an exciting race. A bit of a shame with the safety cars, but overall it was good. It was fun out there.
“I’m enjoying the moment, and hopefully of course we can keep this momentum going for a while.
“To be a three-time world champion is just incredible.”
Piastri collected the first win of his career and McLaren’s first victory since compatriot Daniel Ricciardo won the Italian Grand Prix in 2021, albeit his landmark result coming in a sprint race.
“Very happy,” he said. “A very stressful race.
“When I saw all the soft guys come through at the start I thought we were in a bit of trouble, but then their tires fell off pretty quickly.
“The safety car was my friend today, especially once Max got behind me, but the pace was reasonable.
“First sprint win sounds pretty cool.”
Norris recovered to third place late in the race, passing both Ferrari drivers and the fading Russell in the final three laps to stand on the sprint podium.
“First of all congrats to Oscar and congrats to Max,” the Briton said.” [Oscar’s] first win — earlier than mine — well done to him.
“Another podium or us, so for the team it’s been a mega day.”
George Russell retained fourth ahead of medium-starting teammate Lewis Hamilton, who recovered seven places from his starting position as the soft starters on the grid slipped down the order.
Carlos Sainz held sixth ahead of teammate Charles Leclerc, but the Monegasque was just 0.004s ahead of the charging Alex Albon, who finished eighth, up from 17th on the grid, to score the final point of the sprint.
Fernando Alonso battled with Norris early but sunk to ninth ahead of Pierre Gasly, Valtteri Bottas, Yuki Tsunoda, Lance Stroll, Kevin Magnussen and Zhou Guanyu.