Oscar Piastri won a processional final sprint race of the 2025 Formula 1 season in Qatar to make a small dent in McLaren team-mate Lando Norris's championship lead.
Norris will take a 22-point buffer over Piastri into the final two races of the campaign, with Red Bull driver Max Verstappen a further three back - and a total of 50 still available.
Piastri, who hadn't beaten Norris in a race (grand prix or sprint) since the Dutch Grand Prix at Zandvoort in August, was in full control from pole here, leading by over a second after the opening lap and thus never allowing Mercedes driver George Russell to enter DRS range.
Despite a report of vibrations late on, Piastri ended up winning by nearly five seconds over second-placed Russell.
Qualifying overachiever Yuki Tsunoda briefly threatened for third off the line - with championship leader Norris in the awkward position of being the outside car going three-wide into Turn 1.
But it shook out decently for Norris, who kept third place coming out of the corner and consolidated it from there.
Verstappen pounced on Fernando Alonso through the first couple of corners, then lunged past Tsunoda - with minimal resistance - at Turn 4, but Verstappen's progress ended with a couple of laps of pressure on Norris.
The Red Bull title hopeful soon dropped back, complaining of bouncing and ultimately settling for fourth.
Team-mate Tsunoda, in his best race drive as a Red Bull driver, did blot the copybook with a five-second penalty for repeated track limits breaches - the final one coming on entry into the Turn 10 left-hander, with Tsunoda going too far outside to set up the corner.
That penalty was set to demote him from fifth to sixth, but Mercedes driver Kimi Antonelli picked up a track limits penalty of his own post-race, so both penalties were effectively negated.
Alonso had run ahead of Antonelli in the first half of the race, but let him past after dipping into the gravel exiting the final corner.
Alonso finished seventh, while Carlos Sainz picked up the final point for Williams after fending off Racing Bulls driver Isack Hadjar.
It was a turgid race for Ferrari. Charles Leclerc dropped back at the start with a poor Turn 1 and a worse Turn 2 - where he went wide, then spent the race fruitlessly chasing after Haas's Ollie Bearman for 12th.
Leclerc tagged the Turn 5 gravel at one point and was attacked by Liam Lawson, who was deemed to have completed the overtake off-track and was forced to give the position back.
Lewis Hamilton made no on-track progress from his pitlane start, finishing 17th ahead of three drivers - Pierre Gasly, Lance Stroll and Franco Colapinto - who all pitted in-race to try the softs (all 20 cars started on mediums).
