Picture Credit: X
Under the bright lights of the famed Lusail International Circuit and amid tens of thousands of fans, the 2024 Qatar Grand Prix, the penultimate race of the season proved to be an action-packed, dramatic, incident marred and ultimately, Red Bull-dominated event. It had some close wheel-to-wheel fights and a great surge by Max Verstappen to the front with the Dutchman beginning the battle from second on the grid.
But which were the major highlights or as they say, the key talking points from the 2024 Qatar Grand Prix.
SportsTiger have it covered for you:
Verstappen shows pure class
After emerging as the F1 world champion at Las Vegas just last weekend, where forget winning the race, he didn’t even bag a podium, Verstappen was quick to bounce back and take a stellar victory at Qatar.
Thus proving a mighty fact that despite earning the cherished world championship crown, the hunger to carry on and keeping up the winning habit was still very much his focus.
For the better part of the race at Qatar, not only did Verstappen remain out in the front up until the checkered flag, he kept presenting purple times thanks to one fastest lap after another. All this while been pursued by the eager and relentless McLaren of close rival, Lando Norris.
But while some play catch up on occasions as evident in Norris’s case who drove as well as he could have before being severely reprimanded for the failure to lift off during the safety car deployment period, the winners, Verstappen demonstrated, play it differently.
Never looking under pressure and seeming absolutely in full control of the race, it could be argued, that the Dutchman took control of the race proceedings quite early on after grabbing the lead of the race from the hands of George Russell. From that pint onwards, it was total domination by Verstappen.
A forgettable race for Lewis Hamilton
On a day where just about anything that could have gone wrong, did go wrong for Lewis Hamilton, the Mercedes driver emerged with bitter disappointment at the 2024 Qatar Grand Prix. For starters, he fell down at the start of the Grand Prix itself finding it hard to make inroads. As it is, a P6 that saw the mega multiple world champion positioned behind Leclerc didn’t help his cause.
After a few initial laps, it was found out that Lewis had made the error of judgment on account of making a false start. This earned him a tough penalty. He would later run over the debris from an on track skirmish that compromised his tires. And with nine laps to go and Lewis Hamilton already befuddled by what was happening, the Mercedes pit crew hear from the great man on the radio.
He requested to retire the car but was asked to carry on. One lap later, the team itself called out Hamilton to box and retire the car.
Such were the scenes at the Lusail track that Mercedes #44 just didn’t enjoy a great day out in the field.
Hamilton eventually finished on twelfth and thus, with no points to his name. He was, lest it is forgotten, the winner of the maiden Qatar Grand Prix back in 2021.
But on this occasion, he dealt with severe reprimands such as even a drive through penalty for speeding in the pit lane.
Fortune favours the brave, which in this occasion was Leclerc
Thanks to a fantastic drive by Charles Leclerc of Ferrari that resulted in a second place finish for the Monegasque, the Italian stable are now able to take the Constructor’s fight with Red Bull to Abu Dhabi, which happens to be the last race of the current world championship season.
Leclerc had actually started his Qatar Grand Prix from fifth on the grid, which was just ahead of Lewis Hamilton of Mercedes.
But after fending off his teammate in the earlier part of the 2024 Qatar Grand Prix, Leclerc demonstrated persistent speed and kept up with the sharper end of the grid. He would place himself in the top five at the front and when in the closing stages of the race Lando Norris was instructed a rather harsh penalty of 10 seconds (stop go in the pit lane), Leclerc emerged as the beneficiary of the verdict handed to the McLaren driver.
From that point on, he’d cling onto second, which ultimately became his latest podium since the Mexican Grand Prix. But all of that may not have transpired had Charles not kept up the ante of pace for the better part of the race. Destiny, as it turns out, always favours the brave. Leclerc was the clear answer at Lusail.
Qatar GP far from brilliant for George Russell
It wasn’t quite the result in the end for George Russell of Mercedes who finished fourth at the completion of the 57-lap content at Qatar having begun from the very front of the grid. The King’s Lynn-born English driver lost control of his track position within seconds from the race start finding his Mercedes under immense pressure from the Red Bull of Max Verstappen.
He’d also find it quite hard to relent the merciless pace of Lando Norris’s McLaren.
Not too long from the start of the race did Russell find himself dwindling and struggling for essential race pace; resultantly finding the other faster cars making their way through to the front.
While it was always going to be difficult for Russell to contest Verstappen, the eventual race winner here beginning from second on the grid, it’s not that George Russell didn’t try. But he just wasn’t good enough as one found out at the Lusail International Circuit.
The Las Vegas Grand Prix winner was only able to manage a P4, finishing some 7.6 seconds ahead of Pierre Gasly of Alpine. And that was that.
