A pretty dull F1 sprint at the 2025 Qatar Grand Prix, but still some standout performances to highlight - and some not-so-standout ones...
Loser - Ferrari (13th, 17th)
Ferrari's sprint radiated strong 'season's over but we still have to field the cars' energy - and the now 22-point gap to Red Bull in the fight for third in the constructors' championship looks virtually unassailable in its current form.
For Charles Leclerc, whose Ferrari "felt horrible", the sprint effectively ended when he went wide at Turn 2 after getting picked off by Isack Hadjar at Turn 1.
For Hamilton, it had ended in qualifying, though even with the context of a pitlane start to finish 17th, with the slowest fastest race of the lap, is pretty rough.
The vibes are bad and the results are now worse. - Val Khorounzhiy
Winner - Yuki Tsunoda (5th)
Tsunoda's best race drive for the senior Red Bull team - by far - was nearly marred by what looked a profoundly goofy track limits penalty (though he was far from alone in falling foul at Turn 10),
The penalty was well-deserved, but so too was being bailed out by Kimi Antonelli's own penalty negating it and allowing Tsunoda to keep fifth place.
He will earn credit with Red Bull for the drive, but perhaps even more so for his handling of the opening lap, where he was as helpful as possible to team-mate Max Verstappen without doing anything untoward or eyebrow-raising. - VK
Winner - Oscar Piastri (1st)
Yes, an obvious pick, but this was a sprint race with extra significance for Piastri, beyond the simple fact of him taking two points out of the 24-point deficit to Lando Norris that Piastri faced entering this weekend.
This was his first victory of any kind in F1 since August’s Dutch Grand Prix at Zandvoort, after which - thanks to an engine shutdown for Norris - Piastri looked clear favourite for the championship.
We all know the gradual unravelling that’s happened since, and particularly over the past four races or so, but high-speed, high-grip tracks like Qatar suit Piastri much better, and he now looks more like the driver who led the championship for so long.
The question now is: will it be too little too late? Probably... - Ben Anderson
Loser - Fernando Alonso (7th)
A disappointing sprint for Alonso after the promise of him qualifying on the second row of the grid, but once again it looks like a case of him overachieving over one-lap and the car regressing to the mean over the course of a race stint.
Alonso did his best to fight with the Red Bulls through the opening sequence of corners, but lost two places there - and another when he ran wide in front of the Mercedes of Kimi Antonelli.
What will really frustrate Alonso is that his pace dropped off so badly that he wasn’t in position to benefit from both Tsunoda and Antonelli getting hit with five-second penalties for track limits offences.
Had this race gone on much longer it looked as though Alonso might drop out of the top eight altogether. - BA
Winner - George Russell (2nd)
Mercedes' second-place finish in the constructors' standings this year - which now looks an inevitability - will have Russell's name all over it, and his strong sprint performances have been a small but not insignificant part of this.
The W16 looks solid enough here but Russell is the one making it a podium contender. - VK
Loser - the spectators
We’ve been treated to some fun-to-watch sprints recently, and Brazil of course never disappoints, but Qatar was a really bad advert for them.
Apart from bad first laps for Alonso, Leclerc and Nico Hulkenberg, Tsunoda letting Verstappen past at Turn 4, Antonelli later sneaking past Alonso when he ran wide, and Liam Lawson making an illegal move on Leclerc that he had to reverse, there was barely any serious action over the 19 laps.
Even the repeated Leclerc lunges on Ollie Bearman's Haas at Turn 1 offered false hope, because the sweeping nature of that opening corner sequence makes it very easy for cars on the outside to defend position, even if the attacking car has DRS open.
Russell spoke back in Austin about how F1 2025 has become a "race to Turn 1", and has questioned why the only DRS zone here hasn't been extended.
Since he said what he said back in Austin we’ve actually been treated to some decent action, but the Qatar sprint was very much a regression. - BA
