Winners and losers from the 2025 Qatar Grand Prix

McLaren snatched defeat from the jaws of victory in Qatar, gifting Max Verstappen a far easier win than he might have anticipated before the race.

Here is PlanetF1.com’s full list of winners and losers from the 2025 Qatar Grand Prix.

Winners and losers from the 2025 Qatar Grand Prix

Winner: Max Verstappen

Having got the luck he needed to keep his championship challenge alive in Las Vegas, the Dutch driver must have not believed his eyes when he pitted at the end of Lap 7 in Qatar.

Able to see both McLarens opt against making the same decision, Verstappen knew instantly the huge advantage he’d just been delivered as he thought, “that’s an interesting move”, revealing this in a quippy answer post-race.

From there, he knew he simply needed to concentrate on producing inch-perfect stints with consistency and pace, doing so despite battling the same balance limitations he’d had through most of the weekend.

This he did, as can be expected from the four-time F1 World Champion, allowing his advantage to be massaged away in the closing stages as he didn’t take too many risks on pushing his tyres beyond their comfort zone, minimising the degradation and the chances of a sudden failure.

While there was nothing overtly spectacular required from Verstappen aside from metronomic consistency and a calm head, his race start saw him come out on top, once again, against Lando Norris; the first domino in a race that McLaren then handed to him.

One does not give a driver like Max Verstappen a 25-second advantage and expect him to squander it, and the Dutch driver didn’t need to ask twice for a second consecutive weekend of extremely good fortune, and a perfectly executed race.

His 12-point deficit is still something in which he will need factors to come together in Abu Dhabi to claim a fifth title, but Verstappen smells blood and a rattled McLaren.

“I’m excited,” he said.

“I mean, I’m happy to go there and have a go at it.

“But like I said before, you need to also be realistic, that I think on pure pace, we’re not at the same level.

“But at the same time, when strategy maybe comes into play or making the right calls at the right time, we might have the opportunity.”

If anyone knows how to do it, it’s Max Verstappen.

Loser: Oscar Piastri and McLaren

Where to even start with McLaren’s truly bizarre decision-making in Qatar?

Pre-event, the confirmation of the mandatory tyre usage lap limit meant that Lap 7 was precisely the lap upon which a stop would make sense to enable two straightforward stints of 25 laps apiece.

Granted, this did take away any modicum of flexibility over the remainder of the race, as Norris’ race engineer Will Joseph plaintively explained to his driver.

But, short of having another extremely well-timed Safety Car, having the first of the two required pitstops done and gaining that 25 seconds or so of race time was the obvious course of action for everyone.

Apart from McLaren, that is, which was the only team to stay out on track and forgo that delicious helping of free time.

Andrea Stella explained afterwards that some of this was down to a reluctance to double-stack its cars, a situation that would have likely compromised Norris’ race as he would have lost track position to at least a handful of rivals.

But, as multiple other teams displayed, the double-stack was still the better option over needing to make up circa 25 seconds, even having gained the benefit of ‘flexibility’ against rivals an entire pitstop ahead.

The most obvious strategy choice then appeared to be getting close to the end, pitting for soft tyres (both McLaren drivers had three sets of quali-run used soft tyres left), and then attempting to hunt Verstappen down with that considerable tyre delta.

But, instead, McLaren entirely acquiesced by fitting the hards again, against Verstappen on the same compound on a day where tyre performance degradation was not a major factor.

It was a fumble of epic proportions, and it all appeared to stem from McLaren’s overwhelming desire to ensure both of its drivers are treated equally.

However, on this occasion, equal treatment appeared to result in Piastri being unfairly hamstrung, simply due to the fact that his teammate, well behind him, would have lost out more than him.

On a weekend where Piastri had bounced back magnificently after a run of difficulty, to see his championship hopes amost entirely eroded away on that basis will hurt, badly.

As for Norris, while he finished off the podium, the title is his to lose with a reasonably comfortable task for Abu Dhabi to seal the title: finish in the top three.

With the McLaren drivers playing ‘the floor is lava’ with the title, might Norris, Piastri, and McLaren seize up further in the pressure cooker at Yas Marina?

Winner: Carlos Sainz

“I think it’s my proudest day in Williams,” was Carlos Sainz’s summation of his Qatar Grand Prix.

Delivering seventh on the grid on Saturday after diligently working on a Qatar setup since as far back as the week after Budapest, he rose to fifth off the start.

From there, strong race pace and superbly executed pitstops took Sainz as far as third place, ahead of Norris after the McLaren driver’s second stop.

An “Oh no!” exclamation in the closing stages suggested the Spaniard’s podium might slip away from him as he began to struggle with understeer but, despite the best efforts of Kimi Antonelli and Norris behind, he held on to take his first Grand Prix podium for the team.

It was a weekend in which Sainz’s diligence and hard work to overcome the weaknesses encountered in Hungary resulted in clear and tangible reward for that effort.

A pattern has emerged in the closing stages of the championship, with Alex Albon going scoreless in each Grand Prix since Monza. In that time, Sainz has scored two third-places, a Sprint podium, a fifth, and a 10th, and is now just nine points behind his teammate.

It’s a remarkable turnaround from the former Ferrari man, who is delivering upon his vow that he needed six months to acclimatise to his new home. Against such form, Albon will have a much tougher time of things versus Sainz next season.

Loser: Nico Hulkenberg

A short and frustrating race for Nico Hulkenberg, whose race-ending incident triggered the defining moment and Safety Car.

Starting on the soft tyre, the German driver felt points had been a possibility but he ended up being caught up in a rather unnecessary moment of contact with Pierre Gasly.

Attempting to overtake the French driver around the outside of Turn 1, exploiting the superior grip of his softs, Gasly tagged the rear-right wheel of the Sauber and eliminated him on the spot.

He and team boss Jonathan Wheatley explained afterwards that they believed enough room had been left for the Alpine, with Gasly’s version of events being that he had held a consistent line.

The stewards’ verdict was that Hulkenberg could have done a little more to avoid the collision, but ruled neither was predominantly to blame.

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Winner: Kimi Antonelli

With a small but loud minority of the F1 social media fandom lashing out at the 18-year-old Kimi Antonelli after his late-race error allowed Lando Norris through to take fourth place and a few extra points, Qatar 2025 isn’t a race Antonelli will likely remember with fondness.

But Antonelli put some clear space between himself and George Russell at the start, with Russell dropping three places at the start and opening corner.

This meant that, when the pair dived into the pit lane on Lap 7, Russell had to double-stack behind his teammate; it was a situation exacerbated by a slow stop for Antonelli that resulted in him being held to ensure a safe release due to approaching traffic, dropping Antonelli behind Sainz.

This all resulted in Russell losing further ground on his teammate, with Antonelli continuing his late-season run of impressive outings by running a comfortable fourth and closing onto the back of Sainz in the closing stages.

But an error under pressure from Norris allowed the McLaren driver through, setting off some unnecessary insinuations from Helmut Marko and GianPiero Lambiase about possible intent, given the relationship between McLaren and Mercedes.

However, one look at Antonelli’s face in the paddock after the race told the true story: a possible podium had slipped through his fingers due to his own mistake.

Having been battling with the rear end, Antonelli’s struggles were such that he followed up his initial mistake with another at the following corner, having gone off-track in the first instance.

In the context of Antonelli’s travails this season, and his youthful inexperience, such a mistake isn’t enough to take away from what had otherwise been a terrific drive.

The youngster is likely to endure a few days of social media toxicity, some of it quite extreme in its vitriol, for the first time in his F1 career. Hopefully, the Italian will be able to put that aside and not allow it to affect his mentality heading into the last race.

Loser: Lewis Hamilton

After a disastrous Saturday, almost anything would have been better in Lewis Hamilton’s Qatar Grand Prix.

Opting for the soft tyre to start, this paid off with an immediate gain to climb to 14th place, but the hoped-for advantage of running the softs for the first stint only lasted until Lap 7’s Safety Car intervention.

Forced to double-stack behind Charles Leclerc, this shuffled Hamilton back down two places again and, with no strategic games to play from there, was powerless to move up any further.

He came home 12th, with Leclerc salvaging eighth.

“I think it really highlighted just how developed everybody else is and how undeveloped we are at this point of the year,” Hamilton said afterwards.

“I was near getting overtaken by the [Sauber] car, and I couldn’t keep up with the Williams…”

It’s a bleak ending to the ground-effect era for Ferrari, one in which it started in such fine fashion with Leclerc almost four years ago, but, in a year in which aero development was halted early, the Scuderia has found itself slipping further and further away from the front.

As for Leclerc, the Monegasque had “no pace, no confidence” with “not a single lap where we’ve been competitive”.

Winner: Fernando Alonso

He may have thought points wouldn’t be possible after qualifying in eighth, but the Spaniard overcame his anticipated race pace disadvantage on Sunday.

Assessing his race as a “bit lucky” due to a DRS train and the difficulty of overtaking at Losail, Alonso was very fortunate that his dramatic mid-race spin resulted in no major drama or damage, only costing him position to Isack Hadjar, who would go on to retire anyway towards the end.

Eight points in total is roughly eight points more than might have been expected pre-weekend, but Alonso continues to pop in some magic when misfortune stays away.

Such a result has helped Aston Martin’s seventh-place standing in the Constructors’ Championship, keeping it seven points clear of Haas, with a 12-point deficit to Racing Bulls.

Read next: Watch out, Lando: Oscar Piastri is back in the game