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Reigning Formula 1 champion Max Verstappen kept his 2025 title defence alive into the season finale by winning a Qatar Grand Prix transformed by the maximum stint rule.
Pirelli prescribed a 25-lap stint maximum going into the weekend for the 57-lap race, and an early-race incident involving Nico Hulkenberg and Pierre Gasly came just at the right time to present the field with the option to pit under the safety car and split the rest of the race into even two 25-lap stints.
Virtually the entire field took that option, bar McLaren, and it proved the race-winning strategy for Verstappen - who is now 12 points back from championship leader Lando Norris in the title race.
Norris's team-mate Oscar Piastri is four points back from Verstappen.
Verstappen had already put himself in position to preserve his title hopes into Abu Dhabi at the start, as he breezed past second-placed Norris - who was one of several drivers to get a poor launch from the off-line, even-numbered side of the grid.
The trio ran in formation, a couple of seconds apart, until Hulkenberg's attempt to work the outside of Gasly through the sweeping Turn 1 led to Gasly understeering into the Sauber on corner exit, the resulting collision causing a puncture for Gasly and removing Hulkenberg from the race on the spot.
Sixteen cars were called into the pits as the safety car came out on lap seven - and Haas driver Esteban Ocon, after staying out, would pit, too.
Only the McLarens stayed out in a 1-2, handing a strategic advantage to Verstappen.
As the race restarted, both Piastri and Norris made an early push to build the gap, Piastri then coming in on lap 24 while Norris followed suit a lap later.
Both faced potentially traffic-compromised races, but had just enough time in hand to slot into the gap that had formed in the order between fifth-placed Kimi Antonelli and sixth-placed Fernando Alonso.
But clean air proved insufficient, with Verstappen able to match them blow for blow - and even coming up on Norris after his own lap 32 pitstop, as the McLaren driver struggled for pace following a big moment on the exit of Turn 14, the third of the three successive left-handers, in which he nearly sent the car into a high-speed spin.
Piastri would have a Turn 14 moment of his own but kept up strong pace, yet faced a 17-second gap to Verstappen after pitting for the second time - and could only whittle it down to eight by the chequered flag. He described himself as "speechless" on the McLaren team radio after the finish.
For Norris, even a podium would prove elusive as his final stop relegated him to fifth, behind the Williams of Carlos Sainz and the Mercedes of Antonelli.
An apparent Antonelli error on the penultimate lap allowed Norris to salvage fourth, but he just ran out of time to put any pressure on Sainz, who celebrated his and Williams's second podium of the season.
Racing Bulls rookie Isack Hadjar was on course for sixth place when he suffered a late-race puncture.
It promoted Mercedes driver George Russell - whose race largely unravelled with a poor start - into sixth instead, with Alonso in seventh. He had run sixth, but spun through the tricky Turn 10, only losing two positions - one of which he would regain through Hadjar's puncture.
Charles Leclerc (Ferrari), Liam Lawson (Racing Bulls) and Yuki Tsunoda (Racing Bulls) completed the points.
Hadjar and Lance Stroll retired late on but will be classified due to having completed enough laps.
So the only de jure retirements from the race were Hulkenberg and Haas driver Ollie Bearman, who was on the outskirts of the top 10 when he had a pitstop issue during the mass pitstops on lap 32 - briefly heading out with a wheel unattached, losing lots of time as that was addressed, then picking up a 10-second penalty for an unsafe release before Haas called it a day on his behalf.
