The penultimate round of the 2025 Formula 1 season at the Qatar Grand Prix kicked off with a day of reaction to the biggest stories after Las Vegas.
From what Fernando Alonso made of Adrian Newey's shock appointment as Aston Martin team principal for 2026, to reaction to McLaren's shock double disqualification, here's everything we learned from Thursday at the Qatar GP.
Shock Newey appointment a 'logical' move - Alonso
The shock news that Adrian Newey will become Aston Martin’s new team principal is a “normal, logical step into 2026” according to Fernando Alonso.
Alonso says Newey was already “managing in a way the technical development of the car, but also the team, the people that was needed and taking care of which areas we need to reinforce as a team, which other areas were less important.
“So in a way, he was doing internally a lot of management and Andy [Cowell] was doing a lot of management as well on the engine side and engine integration to the chassis.”
Alonso was also full of praise for Cowell, who will be moved into overseeing Aston Martin’s factory Honda deal.
He says Aston Martin probably has “two of the best people”, plus he says with Newey/Cowell combined with ambitious owner Lawrence Stroll, the team is in “good hands”.
Alonso knows that isn’t enough to guarantee success in 2026, though, and believes the team is still evolving, given it has plenty of “young, energetic people that need the guidance of Adrian” and Aston Martin’s other leaders. - Josh Suttill
Sainz and Russell disagree on TV-style stewarding wish
The narrative on Thursday was dominated by that evening’s crunch meeting between drivers and the FIA on racing guidelines.
Carlos Sainz’s press conference comments drew particular attention as he said TV broadcasters Jolyon Palmer, Anthony Davidson and Karun Chandhok were correct about contentious incidents “90%” of the time.
"Every time I see the analysis that they do and the verdict that they give from racing drivers that have been racing recently, I think they do very good analysis, and they put the blame correctly most of the time on who actually has the blame, or if it's actually just a racing incident.
"My future ideal is no guidelines and people that are able to judge these sort of incidents as well as these three people that I just mentioned do, after the races.”
Sainz wasn’t really calling for that specific trio to be permanent stewards, but he said he wanted permanent stewards to adopt that TV-style analytical approach. An approach that Mercedes’s George Russell said wouldn’t be entirely possible.
“I respect those three that he [Sainz] mentioned from an analysis perspective and I think they do get things absolutely spot on.
“The benefit they have versus the stewards is they’ve got: one, no pressure; two, they’ve got time on their hands not to make a decision there in the moment; and three, they’re not following guidelines. They’re following their own view of racing experience and knowledge, which, for what it’s worth, I think the stewards have.”
Russell did criticise the racing rules themselves, just as Sainz did.
“If the guidelines aren’t correct, the decisions wouldn’t be correct, but you can’t have a guideline for every circumstance.”
The problem? Someone’s got to cough up the cash for this team of permanent stewards.
“At the end of the day, it's a job. [F1] is a multi-billion-dollar sport. We shouldn't be having volunteers having such great power in certain roles. So somebody's got to pay for these people, in my eyes,” said Russell. - Samarth Kanal
McLaren stance is 'perfect' for Verstappen
With Verstappen now tied with Oscar Piastri in the championship standings – and the pair of them 24 points adrift of Norris – it is clear that McLaren faces a nervous final run in.
Amid the obvious danger of Norris and Piastri taking points off each and giving Verstappen an open goal to come straight through the middle of them to snatch the crown, it is no surprise that the issue of team orders came up for discussion ahead of the Qatar Grand Prix.
After all, if Piastri was put into a supporting role to prioritise Norris’s points haul, then that would pretty much stave off the Verstappen threat.
But that is not what is going to happen, as Piastri revealed on Thursday that the topic of him supporting Norris came up very briefly before being shot down.
“We've had a very brief discussion on it and the answer is no,” he said. “I'm still equal on points with Max and got a decent shot of still winning it if things go my way. So, yeah, that's how we play it.”
Verstappen said he'd have told his team to "f off" if they'd asked him to do that, but believes this situation is "perfect" for his title bid.
Piastri knows that heading to high-speed tracks that offer good grip are likely to swing things back in his favour after a recent run of more challenging venues.
And that is why Norris does not yet know who his main challenger is likely going to be.
“They're both just as good as one another.,” explained Norris. “I know what Max is capable of and I think Oscar's capable of exactly the same as what Max can do.”
Game on. - Jon Noble
What's going on with a big intra-team deficit
Esteban Ocon has scored four points to Ollie Bearman’s 25 in the last five rounds and brakes seem to be the issue with Ocon. Or at least, they seemed to be the issue.
A “massive braking problem” hampered him in Azerbaijan in September and, as recently as practice in Las Vegas, Ocon said he wasn’t confident on the brakes.
Haas team principal Ayao Komatsu clarified in Qatar that this wasn’t an Ocon-specific hardware issue.
“You call it ‘brake problems’ but just to avoid any doubt, we are running exactly the same spec [across both cars] so it’s not an issue of spec as such,” said Komatsu.
“Their driving styles are slightly different. What they look for from the car is slightly different. And certain things are to do with tyres, it’s not just brakes. It’s his feeling under braking, at a certain phase of braking.
“So I don’t believe we have a system issue.”
Komatsu said that it’s a “feeling problem” for Ocon and the team has explored set-up and mapping solutions to mitigate it - pointing the finger at Ocon’s driving style.
Haas is even changing brake material in an attempt to alleviate the stopping issues.
“We tried a different brake material. Initially, that improved his feeling; we tried it in Vegas and his feeling was actually negative.
“We’re not going to try it here because it’s a sprint weekend. We’ll try again in Abu Dhabi."
And the Haas boss isn’t confident that a brake change in Abu Dhabi will yield the results that Ocon wants.
“Again, one event, on Friday, he was happier; one event on Friday, which was Vegas, he was less happy. So again, it’s not clear cut to me that that’s a solution.” - SK
Hamilton doesn't regret Ferrari move
There were more bleak headlines for Lewis Hamilton after another miserable weekend with Ferrari in Las Vegas, with Hamilton admitting he was no longer looking forward to 2026.
But in Qatar on Thursday, he clarified his comments.
"I think probably I'd be surprised if the other drivers are excited about next year at the end of a season, because usually you don't have a lot of energy at the end of a season," Hamilton explained.
"You're looking forward to time with family and stuff. That's really it.
"But, I mean, look—that was just in the heat of frustration. Often, there's a lot of frustration at the end of the races, particularly when they haven't gone well.
"So, no, I'm excited to see what the team build next year and to continue to build on with them."
Hamilton also said he doesn't regret signing for Ferrari almost two years ago now, "I know it takes time to build and grow within an organisation, and I expected that".
The winter break can't come soon enough for Hamilton, as you can tell from his first answer in the FIA press conference...
Question - How do you look back on your first season with Ferrari?
Lewis Hamilton - "I don't. Just look forwards." - JS
Norris's big 'strength' in title fight
Norris said his “strength” is feeling the same now as he did when his F1 title hopes looked the most bleak, as he approaches his first chance to win the world championship this weekend.
Though McLaren’s double DNF in Las Vegas last week was a blow for Norris and the team as it allowed Max Verstappen to hack the points gap from 49 to 24, the title is still in Norris’s hands.
He insisted that actually made little difference as he’s felt the same throughout the last couple of months. That’s up for debate - how can it not help to have such a handy buffer with only two weekends remaining? - but what is undeniable is that Norris looks quite serene.
If there is pressure building it didn’t show on Thursday. Norris looks and sounds very calm, and far from being rattled by Verstappen closing in. Whether that translates to the track is the big question.
As Verstappen said, whether you like to think so or not, experience does help and will help over these final two weekends. Verstappen has been there and done it, Norris will face a test unlike any other in his career. He could “tense up”, as Verstappen was asked, or have another kind of negative reaction.
Or he could ace it. If Norris turns his Thursday demeanour into on-track performance he will have no trouble at all. And he is clearly leaning on a sense of calm getting this over the line regardless of where that calmness is derived. - Scott Mitchell-Malm
