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Verstappen benefited from a tactical decision from the British team that contradicted decisions made by every other team during an initial safety car period

It was a costly decision that sacrificed track position to Verstappen in the final stages and retrospectively threw away the race win for the Australian driver

Grand Prix Results and Title Implications

The race winner triumphed to take his seventh victory of the season, matching Norris and Piastri, while the Piastri was runner-up and the Briton fourth behind the Williams car of the Spanish driver

The McLaren driver won himself an additional points by overtaking the Mercedes driver's Mercedes on the penultimate lap

The championship leader has been left with a 12-point lead over Verstappen, who moved ahead of Piastri by four points heading to the final race on 5-7 December

To win the championship, Norris must secure a podium position at Abu Dhabi if his rival takes victory next race day

Key Moments of the Dramatic Grand Prix

• McLaren's choice not to pit when a yellow flag was called on the seventh lap for a crash between the French team's Gasly and the Swiss team's Hulkenberg
• A strategy led by Piastri to advance his final stop in a last-ditch effort to catch Verstappen came to nothing
• A unexpected second podium for the Williams driver handed by the team's tactical decision

The Way The British Team Lost Out in The Race

The fateful point for the team was when Gasly and Hulkenberg came together as the Hulkenberg tried to pass the Frenchman around the outside of the first corner on lap seven

The German's car was left damaged beside the track That brought out the safety car

The crucial part of the timing was that it meant there were 50 laps remaining in the race

With Pirelli enforcing a 25-lap maximum usage on the tyres, that meant anyone who pitted at that time was committed to a rigid strategy with a additional pit stop on the thirty-second lap

Driver Responses and After the Event Comments

Speechless

Piastri added in his after-race conversation: Clearly we made mistakes tonight My driving was the best race I was capable of, as fast as I could, but there was nothing left out there Attempted my best but didn't get it done

The race winner said: That represented an incredible race for us Our team executed the right call to pit It was intelligent Furthermore super-happy to triumph in Qatar and remain competitive to the end, remarkable

Final Race Standings

• 1. Max Verstappen (Red Bull)
• 2. Piastri (McLaren)
• 3. Carlos Sainz (Williams)
• 4. Lando Norris (McLaren)
• 5. Antonelli (Mercedes-AMG)
• 6. Russell (Mercedes)
• 7. Fernando Alonso (Aston Martin)
• 8. Charles Leclerc (Scuderia Ferrari)
• 9. Liam Lawson (RB F1 Team)
• 10. Yuki Tsunoda (Red Bull)

Looking Ahead

The all-important championship finale at the Yas Marina The circuit itself does not create the most exciting competition, but once again this evening event hosts an contest which promises to be every bit as dramatic as Sebastian Vettel's maiden championship in twenty-ten, or the Dutch driver's much-debated initial championship in twenty-twenty-one