Christian Horner: "For Max it was an incredible win. It's been a very tough race, both physically and mentally, for all the drivers. In a race that was very prescriptive and sub optimal to the fastest race, Max drove well and very controlled, trying to manage the tyres. Having an enforced three stop was not the fastest way to run that race so it was a case of making sure we covered off the Safety Car possibilities and managed the deg but the strategy team did their work, got their sums right and helped deliver the victory. For Checo it was another tough race. The 15 seconds of penalties really impacted his overall performance and meant a missed opportunity to capitalise on points with Lewis out of the race. Checo just needs to get that form back that he had at the beginning of the season and we know he can do it. He knows he can do it. He has our full support. We head West now and to the Americas where Checo drives well so we look forward to some stronger performances in the quest for second place."
Scuderia Ferrari leaves Qatar with ten points, courtesy of a fifth place for Charles Leclerc in 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.
There were not many strategy options to consider given that the number of pit stops was dictated by the decision on safety grounds to only allow a driver to complete 18 laps on a single set of tyres, applicable across all three compounds, including any laps these tyres had been used for earlier in the weekend. Charles therefore had to concentrate mainly on driving in terribly hot and humid conditions, while avoiding the pitfall of track limits which caught out many drivers. The Monegasque did his best, running at a consistent pace, getting the most out of his package. Starting from fifth on the grid, Charles immediately inherited two places when the Mercedes pair collided, although he lost one to Oscar Piastri, thus finding himself in fourth place at the end of the opening lap. During the race, Leclerc had to give best to George Russell who came through from the back of the pack, running a stronger pace and finishing just ahead of him.
The team heads home to Italy tomorrow to start preparations for a particularly busy time in the Americas with a triple-header consisting of three consecutive Sundays in Austin, Mexico City and Sao Paulo.
Frederic Vasseur, Team Principal: We can't be satisfied with how things went this weekend, because we have lost points to our closest rival and we were unable to get Carlos to the grid because of a reliability problem.
However, I think we did the most we could today with Charles. In extreme conditions he drove very well and the mechanics delivered three excellent pit stops. Maybe in the middle stint, we were slowed a bit by traffic, but anyway, it would not have been easy to keep George Russell behind us today. It was a chaotic weekend, held in very tough conditions with several unexpected factors, starting with the problems linked to the kerbs, which might have actually had something to do with the failure on Carlos' SF-23. We go home with 10 points from Charles' fifth place and will start preparing for the triple-header in the Americas which look like being very tough.
George Russell came home fourth while Lewis Hamilton was an opening lap retirement in Sunday's Qatar Grand Prix.
On safety grounds, an 18-lap maximum stint on each tyre was mandated for the race. That meant every competitor had to make a minimum of three pit stops.
Starting P2, George lined up on a used Medium tyre with Lewis on a new Soft in P3. After good launches, they made contact in turn one with Lewis retiring.
Suffering a puncture, George was able to continue after a first lap stop, and his race became a four-stop. He ultimately ran a Medium, Medium, Hard, Soft to the flag.
His pace was very strong and he was able to carve his way through the field to P4.
Despite there being more on the table, the team managed to outscore Ferrari in the Constructors' Championship and extend the gap to 28 points.
Andrew Shovlin, Trackside Engineering Director: We've had a tough run of races in the last month. You do get those in sport, though, and it's a good test of how strong your team is. There's very little else to say about the incident at turn one. Neither driver had the intention of coming together. Lewis took full blame for the incident and George acknowledged the role that these sizeable cars can have in such moments. Ultimately both are upset that it's cost the team a lot of points. We know both are committed to making sure we can secure second in the Constructors'.
We have five races to go and we're looking forward not backwards. There are positives we can take away from Qatar. We had good pace today; George recovered from dead last to fourth. Operationally, the team worked extremely well across a very challenging weekend. We have a decent car, two strong drivers and a very committed team in Brackley and Brixworth behind them.
BWT Alpine F1 Team scored six points from today's Qatar Airways Qatar Grand Prix courtesy of Esteban Ocon's seventh place finish at the Lusail International Circuit. Pierre Gasly was running inside the points but fell short of the top ten after a series of penalties for track limit infringements.
It was a physically taxing 57-lap Grand Prix under the lights in Qatar with three pit-stops for both drivers during the race.
Esteban made a strong start, moving up to fifth place, with Pierre maintaining seventh. Both drivers later settled into a rhythm with double points the target with varying pit-stop strategies up and down the grid.
Esteban settled for seventh with a comfortable run to the line while Pierre was on the receiving end of three separate penalties for track limit infringements in the midst of fighting for the top ten. In the end, he finished in twelfth place.
Bruno Famin, Interim Team Principal: "We leave Qatar with more points on the board after Esteban's seventh place finish; a very smart, clinical and well measured drive in challenging conditions. Pierre too had a strong race - it looked promising for a good double team result - but unfortunately his efforts went without reward due to penalties for track limits. We have lots to learn going forwards but, in summary, it's been a positive weekend for the team across all three days. We will continue our hard work back at the factories, take as many learnings as we can and look to convert those into a good team result in the Austin Sprint weekend."
Andrea Stella, Team Principal: "A fantastic day for the team as we achieve our 500th podium in Formula 1. Both Lando and Oscar drove great races in difficult conditions to finish P2 and P3 to add to the success in the Sprint yesterday. A double podium rewards the team both trackside and at the factory for their brilliant work and my thanks go to them for their continued commitment and dedication to McLaren.
"The tyre limitations provided an interesting challenge for the team as we had to adapt our strategy and prepare the team for six stops. However, they managed very well and the brilliant work by the pit-stop crew saw the fastest stop of 1.8 seconds.
"We now turn our focus to a busy triple-header and continue to close the gap to our competitors. We must remain with our feet on the ground, however for now, we will celebrate the success of a very strong weekend."
Alfa Romeo F1 Team KICK celebrated a brilliant double-points finish at the Qatar Grand Prix, as Valtteri Bottas and Zhou Guanyu claimed 8th and 9th positions respectively. This result was the reward for a strong performance by the team as a whole, as drivers, pit crew and the whole of the race team delivered the perfect execution on race day.
Tonight's result contributes six points to the team's total of 16, as Alfa Romeo F1 Team KICK leapfrogs Haas for eighth place in the constructors' championship and closes the gap on seventh place ahead.
Alessandro Alunni Bravi, Team Representative: "Tonight we were able to deliver the race we had been aiming for, for a very long time. We knew we had the potential to score points but we had to execute the perfect race to bring home this result. The strategy was spot on, the pit-stops faultless and the drivers delivered two solid performances, pushing from the first to the last lap with no mistakes. It's a nice reward for all the work done by the team in Hinwil, our race team here and Ferrari: we keep bringing new upgrades to track, while also relentlessly continuing, in the factory, in the sim and trackside, to understand and extract performance from our evolving package. Tonight's result boosts our confidence and reinforces our belief that we can score points in any race if we do our job like tonight. Now, we need to make another step forward and build on the foundations we laid tonight to keep growing as a team for the remainder of the season. Our target remains seventh place in the championship, we will never stop reiterating that. It will be difficult, it will be a fight, but we have the people, the drivers and the commitment we need for it. It will be hard, of course - but we will also make it hard for our competitors."
Mike Krack, Team Principal: "We scored important points today, but it was not an easy race with the intense heat and tyre strategies available to us. They were tough conditions to go racing in and we saw all the drivers needing to hydrate after the race. I don't think there was much more available to us in terms of the overall results. We had a good opening stint and the strategy calls were the right ones. Fernando suffered with some floor damage after a trip through the gravel, which made it difficult to stay ahead of Charles [Leclerc]. Lance had a good recovery from his starting position and was on track for points without the post-race time penalties. It is clear we need to find more performance and our full attention is on doing that for the upcoming races."
MoneyGram Haas F1 Team finished with Kevin Magnussen 14th and Nico Hulkenberg 16th at the Qatar Grand Prix, Round 18 of the 2023 FIA Formula 1 World Championship, held Sunday at the Lusail International Circuit.
A pre-race directive from the FIA and Pirelli mandated a maximum stint limit on one set of tires owing to safety concerns at the high-energy Lusail track, which effectively meant drivers would have to undertake a minimum of three pit stops.
Magnussen took the start from 18th on Pirelli P Zero Red soft tires and moved up to 14th spot, before pitting on lap 3 behind the Safety Car for Yellow medium tires. That put the Dane on an aggressive out-of-sync pit strategy, allowing him to contend for the top 10 places, before cycling through pit lane again on lap 21 for Hard white tires. Magnussen made his third stop on lap 41, taking on more hard tires, going on to classify 14th overall.
Hulkenberg started from 14th on medium tires and worked his way into the top 10 on the opening lap, running as high as fifth. The German came in for his first stop on lap 13, switching to hard tires. Unfortunately for Hulkenberg he had to serve a 10-second time penalty at that pit stop after being judged to have incorrectly lined up on the starting grid. That dropped Hulkenberg towards the rear of the pack and he came in on lap 28, for mediums, before fitting another set of hards on lap 41 that he raced through to the checkered flag.
MoneyGram Haas F1 Team sits ninth in the Constructors' Championship on 12 points heading to home soil next and the United States Grand Prix in Austin, Texas.
Guenther Steiner, Team Principal: "The end of this spec car ended worse than it started, so we're thankful to see the end of it, but today was also not a good day. Nico starting in the wrong grid spot at the beginning didn't help at all because once you get 10 seconds behind at the start of the race where we are, you have no chance. We fought but it wasn't enough. We'll come back in Austin with the upgrade and hopefully it works and at least we know we're doing things to move forward - we're not sitting here waiting for the end of the season. We will work hard until the end of the season."
Guillaume Dezoteux (Head of Vehicle Performance): "The race today was constrained by a maximum number of laps we could do on each tyre set, which was 18. For Liam, starting towards the back of the grid, we tried to start aggressively on the soft compound tyre in an attempt to attack other cars at the start and pit at the first opportunity, which happened during the Safety Car period. Unfortunately, Liam has been struggling to find the pace after his first stop. The pace in the third stint was closer to Yuki, and he was able to further improve towards the end of the race on the medium compound, but it wasn't good enough to catch the cars in front. Yuki's race was also difficult. In his third stint, he was able to stay with Magnussen, but a battle with him and Albon - who had just pitted behind - overstressed his tyres, and he started to lose ground. Since Singapore, we have been on a positive trend with our car performance, both in qualifying and the race, but here in Doha, we didn't manage to achieve the same. We need to analyse the balance evolution and tyre status because we couldn't match our direct competitors today."
Dave Robson, Head of Vehicle Performance: Despite the evening race, it was hot and humid, nonetheless. Racing in these conditions at this high-speed circuit is very physical for the drivers and led to them both ending the race dehydrated.
Given the build-up to the race and our performance in the Sprint Race yesterday, we were probably expecting a little bit more today, but we were never quite able to find Alex the free air he needed to make really good progress. Being held-up by Hulkenberg early in the race after he started in the wrong grid position did not help us in this regard.
Logan has driven very well all weekend and shown good pace, especially in the tricky conditions we had on Friday. It was a shame that we didn't get to see his full pace today after he was forced to retire.
We now look forward to the triple header, which begins in Austin before we move onto Mexico and Brazil.
Max Verstappen celebrated his third world championship title with yet another win, this one in today's Qatar Grand Prix, his fourteenth this season and the 49th of his career. The Dutchman finished ahead of the McLaren duo, with Oscar Piastri second and Lando Norris third.
At the start of the day, 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. Earlier, Pirelli had presented the FIA with the findings of the analysis of the tyre sets returned by the teams yesterday, which showed there was not a significant enough reduction in the 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, as a result of measures introduced before the Sprint Shootout. 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 Hamilton, Bottas, Magnussen and Lawson, who preferred to start on the Soft, while Perez, starting from pit-lane, fitted a set of Hard. As expected, the C3 was only chosen by those who were looking to make up places at the start or in the closing stages of the race when the fuel load would be lower.
Formula 1 returns to the Americas as from 20 October with the United States Grand Prix being held in Austin on 22 October. The next weekend, (27-29 October) the season moves on to Mexico City and finally, the week after that it's the Sao Paulo Grand Prix (3-5 November). The Texas event again runs to the Sprint format and the teams will be supplied with the C2 compound as P Zero White hard, C3 as P Zero Yellow medium and C4 as P Zero Red soft.
Mario Isola: "This was a very demanding weekend on many fronts, which ended with a race that, given the circumstances, was interesting and closely contested. The committed and transparent collaboration between all of Formula 1's stakeholders - the FIA, Formula 1, the teams and drivers - meant that there was a rapid and efficient reaction to solving a safety issue that involved us at first hand. Today, the sport was able to put on an interesting show for the spectators with a lot of overtaking and duels, despite the limitations imposed by the FIA. In the coming weeks, we will continue to analyse the tyres used this weekend to acquire as much information as possible and share that with the FIA.
From what we saw this evening, graining was a very significant factor with all the compounds. It's severity gradually decreased as the track rubbered-in. Today the wind was much weaker than in the past days which reduced the amount of sand and dust blown onto the track surface, even if it did not disappear completely. Thermal degradation also had an effect on tyre performance, with track temperatures never dropping below 36 degrees C."
