File image of Sergio Perez.© AFP

Max Verstappen made clear his feelings about George Russell’s actions leading to him being stripped of pole position when he spoke out after winning Sunday’s chaotic Qatar Grand Prix. The newly-crowned four-time world champion said he felt “surprised and disappointed” by the Mercedes driver’s attempt to see him penalised after an incident during qualifying at the Losail International Circuit on Saturday. “I was surprised and disappointed in the stewards’ room,” said Verstappen. “I have been in there many times, of course, but I have never before seen someone trying to screw someone else over that hard.”

Speaking to reporters after winning Sunday’s race, Verstappen had explained that he had been trying “to be nice” in slowing down on his lap in qualifying and did nothing deliberate to upset Russell. 

The pair had enjoyed a good relationship until this incident which Verstappen made clear had changed his view. 

“I was just trying to be nice and maybe that is not the way to be,” he said. “But I am not surprised by anything anymore in this business.”

Russell had complained that Verstappen’s driving was dangerous on Saturday when he slowed on track ahead of him, causing him to take evasive action. 

The outcome of his complaint was a stewards’ investigation and Verstappen being stripped of his pole position — his one place demotion gifting his rival his career fifth pole. 

But the Mercedes driver was unable to take advantage of his position at the start of the race when a determined Verstappen made a blistering start and then stormed to a classic flawless win. 

His race engineer Gianpiero Lambiase referred to the stewards’ decision and penalty during Verstappen’s slow down lap after winning. 

“Karma is a wonderful thing,” he said. “You definitely did not drive unnecessarily slowly today. Great job.”

The Dutch driver responded by praising the Red Bull team. 

“Simply lovely, guys. Yes, yes, yes. What an unbelievable race again. That was really fun!”

After finishing eighth in Saturday’s sprint race, he and Red Bull performed a spectacular turnaround to win on Sunday, claiming his ninth victory of the season. 

“It was a very good race,” he said. “Of course, yesterday in qualifying the car was a lot better and today that first stint was very, very fast. Lando and I were within 1.8 seconds of each other the whole time, pushing each other and honestly, it was a lot of fun out there.

“This track has a lot of grip and this year the tyres were really holding on, so that was a lot of fun to be really pushing the tyre. We went really long on that first stint. After that there were a few Safety Car moments that you had to take care of, but I’m very happy.

“It’s been a while in the dry to be this competitive, and very proud of everyone in the team to turn it around within a day. So they definitely also deserve this victory.”

Newly-crowned four-time world champion Max Verstappen has been stripped of pole position at the Qatar Grand Prix for impeding Mercedes driver George Russell in qualifying on Saturday. Red Bull’s Verstappen was given a one-place grid penalty for blocking Russell with the British driver starting on pole instead of the Dutchman. Hours after Verstappen claimed his first pole position for five months a one-place penalty was imposed for driving unnecessarily slowly, a manouevre that pushed Russell into the gravel. The Red Bull driver clocked the fastest lap in one minute and 20.520 seconds and Russell was originally second for Mercedes just 0.055 seconds adrift.

But the British driver cried foul immediately.

“Super-dangerous by Verstappen,” said the Mercedes driver, whose thoughts prompted the stewards to investigate. 

“I ended up going through the gravel and all over the floor it felt like it was scraping,” said Russell. 

McLaren’s Lando Norris remains third while sprint-race winner Oscar Piastri of McLaren was fourth with Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc on the third row along with Lewis Hamilton in sixth for Sunday’s Grand Prix.

Norris admitted his disappointment at missing out on a front row start. 

“It’s not what we hoped for, but it was the maximum we could do. My lap was pretty good, but not quick enough.”

Hamilton, set for Ferrari next year, finished sixth, admitting: “I don’t really care. I just want to get through these races, do my job, turn up and look forward to the winter break.” 

After the early laps, Verstappen led before Russell went top in 1:21.519, a time that was seven-tenths quicker than Hamilton’s best as he struggled to extract matching pace on his way to ninth. 

With four minutes to go, Russell offered Hamilton a tow which lifted him to sixth, 0.118 off the pace in a tight field before Russell trimmed two-tenths off his best lap in 1:21.241, beating Leclerc by 0.037 with Sainz third ahead of Norris.  

Out went Alex Albon and his Williams team-mate Franco Colapinto along with Liam Lawson of RB, Haas’s Nico Hulkenberg and Alpine’s Esteban Ocon. 

Russell began Q3 in the same style, clocking 1:21.161, but his top spot was quickly taken by Verstappen in 1:21.085, Red Bull’s set-up changes, following the sprint, paying dividends.

On his second run, Russell improved to go top again by 0.001 seconds, but it was not enough in improving conditions to resist a revitalised Verstappen, or Norris, who clocked 1:20.983. 

It looked solid for McLaren, but in a final flurry of laps Verstappen went top in 1:20.687 with Hamilton rising to fifth, within 0.026 of Russell in fourth, and Alonso and Magnussen claiming top ten spots. 

The ‘top 10 shootout’ began with Russell topping the pile in 1:20.575 ahead of Leclerc on their opening runs when Norris ran off at Turn Five and failed to clock a time before Verstappen slotted into second. 

This left McLaren in need of a strong late lap in the final seconds as they all ran again and Verstappen, against his own forecasts, finished ahead of Russell and Norris for what looked like his first pole since the Austrian Grand Prix in June.

George Russell of Mercedes took pole position for the Las Vegas Grand Prix on Friday while title-chasing Max Verstappen was fifth as the Dutchman closes in on a fourth successive world championship. Ferrari’s Carlos Sainz was second ahead of Pierre Gasly of Alpine with Red Bull’s Verstappen finishing one spot ahead of title rival Lando Norris of McLaren who was sixth. Verstappen, who won the Las Vegas race in 2023, leads Norris by 62 points with three races remaining and needs simply to finish ahead of him on Saturday night to become only the sixth man to win four world titles.

Norris has to beat Verstappen by three points to keep his slim championship hopes alive.

“At least we are ahead of the McLarens. I didn’t expect that so it’s good,” said Verstappen, hampered by Red Bull’s error in bring the wrong rear wing to Las Vegas.

“We’re just a bit too slow. We have been struggling to get the tyres to work over a lap and we’re too slow on the straights.”

Charles Leclerc, in the second Ferrari, was fourth fastest in qualifying and will share the second row with Gasly whose impressive performance on the Las Vegas street circuit followed a shock third-place finish in Brazil last time out.

Yuki Tsunoda of RB was seventh with Oscar Piastri in the second McLaren, Nico Hulkenberg in a Haas and seven-time champion Lewis Hamilton of Mercedes completing the top 10.

Russell clocked a best lap in one minute and 32.312 seconds to outpace Sainz by 0.098 seconds for his third pole this year the fourth of his career.

“It feels incredible to be back on pole,” said Russell, who clipped a wall in the third and final qualifying run.

“I had a bit of a moment on my first run and we had to change the front wing so for a while I didn’t think we were going to make the flag, but I am just so happy.”

Norris felt the “top four was out of reach” for him.

“But I will keep going to the end and will do my best in every race whether I am fighting for the championship or not.”

Colapinto crash

On a cool night in America’s gambling capital, with a track temperature of 13 degrees Celsius, it was Gasly who set the pace as the rest slithered in early pursuit.

Having been quickest in the earlier final free practice, Russell topped Q1 ahead of Hamilton.

Unfortunately for Red Bull, Verstappen’s team-mate Sergio Perez’s miserable season continued as he was eliminated along with Aston Martin’s two-time world champion Fernando Alonso, Williams’ Alex Albon, Valtteri Bottas of Sauber and Lance Stroll in the second Aston Martin.

Hamilton set the Q2 pace in 1:33.136. After his dismal outing in Brazil where he finished 10th in the rain, this was evidence of a revitalised Hamilton ahead of a move to Ferrari next year.

Verstappen briefly went top with an edgy lap before Mercedes responded with Russell taking control as both he and Hamilton delivered improved laps, Russell clocking 1:32.881.

At this stage, Verstappen was showing enough pace to stay ahead of Norris before the Q2 segment ended with a yellow flag as Franco Colapinto hit the wall at the penultimate corner in his Williams, climbing out of the wreckage unhurt.

It was his second consecutive crash in qualifying and left the team with a big repair and rebuild job – the British team’s sixth in three Grands Prix.

The Argentine driver was already heading for a Q2 exit in 14th place along with RB’s Liam Lawson, Sauber’s Zhou Guanyu, Kevin Magnussen of Haas and Alpine’s Esteban Ocon.

Hamilton topped Q2 to lead the way into the top ten shootout with a best lap in 1:32.567 ahead of Sainz and Russell.

The Q3 action resumed after a 25-minute delay for repairs, Verstappen leading the way followed by both McLarens before Russell clocked an early marker in 1:32.811 ahead of Sainz while Hamilton locked up and aborted his first lap.

Max Verstappen’s hopes of clinching a fourth consecutive drivers’ world championship at the Las Vegas Grand Prix this weekend took a dent on Friday when Red Bull revealed they brought the wrong rear wing. In an interview with Auto Motor und Sport, the team’s senior advisor Helmut Marko said Red Bull were losing up to six-tenths of a second on the main straight, the Las Vegas Boulevard leading to Caesars Palace, after a packing blunder.  “We don’t have another rear wing, a smaller rear wing, as we see on our competitors,” said Marko. “It would be more helpful, for sure.”

He added that it was too late for the team to arrange for a more appropriate trimmed rear wing to be flown out to Las Vegas before the race on Saturday night.

Verstappen leads McLaren’s Lando Norris by 62 points with three races remaining and needs simply to finish ahead of him in Las Vegas to become the sixth man to win four world championships. 

The Dutchman, however, struggled in second practice on Thursday night, finishing 17th in slippery conditions on the cold, dry and dusty circuit around the streets of ‘Sin City’ where the three-time champion won last year’s race. 

Verstappen tried to make light of the team’s error, in packing the wrong rear wing, and blamed his struggle on the slippery conditions and difficulty with tyre temperatures. 

“The issue for us is definitely tyre-related as we have no grip and it feels like driving on ice,” he said.

“We struggled to make the tyres work, especially over one lap and we were quite far off with the pace.”

Team-mate Sergio Perez was 19th in the session topped by Mercedes’ seven-time champion Lewis Hamilton ahead of Norris of McLaren, who said on Wednesday it is “probably too late” to stop Verstappen taking the title.

“There were flashes of speed,” said Marko. “We just have to get consistency into it. On the single lap we can improve but on the long run, the tyre wear is a problem at the moment.”

He added that conditions may change in favour of Red Bull before the race. 

“Tomorrow is a different day,” he said. “You see it a lot of times. People will be fastest on Friday, or Thursday, but it doesn’t mean that they are fast in the race. We will, for sure, make a reasonable step.”

McLaren’s Lando Norris said on Wednesday he has acquired the experience to challenge for a Formula One world championship but it is “probably too late” to stop Max Verstappen taking a fourth consecutive title this weekend. The British driver requires a minimum of three more points than Red Bull’s three-time champion at this weekend’s Las Vegas Grand Prix to keep his title hopes alive. Las Vegas is the first of a triple-header finale to the season which ends in Qatar and Abu Dhabi.

“It’s been the first time that we’ve had a chance to fight at the front,” said Norris.

“We’ve not been able to do that for the past six years and this has been our and my first opportunity.

“I was definitely not at the level I needed to be at the beginning of the year, but since the summer break I feel I’ve done a very good job and performed very well, by far some of my best.

“I’m not completely happy with what I’ve done, but for the first time I feel I have got what it takes. I wasn’t outright ready to go up against Red Bull and Max. I think I am now, but it is probably too late,” the 25-year-old added.

After a salutary experience at the Sao Paulo Grand Prix, where Verstappen ended a 10-race winless run, Norris conceded the “door is almost shut” on his title bid.

He goes into this weekend’s race 62 points adrift of Dutch driver Verstappen.

“Max is one of the best drivers ever in F1 and to go up against that person who is so good takes a bit more than I have done this season,” he said

“I am not completely happy with what I’ve done, but for the first time I feel I have got what it takes to fight for the championship.

“It doesn’t mean I’m complete and when you are competing against drivers like Max you have to be close to perfect. The main thing I can take away is I have faith I have what it takes to fight for a championship.”

Norris admitted he had experienced a “tough time” after finishing in sixth place in Brazil in early November.

“It was a defining moment for the championship. The doors are almost shut,” he said.

“For a week, I was pretty down because I had that realisation that things are pretty much out of my control and not within reach and that’s a tough thing.

“When your hopes are so high, to get it knocked down, that was pretty demoralising and not the best feeling.”

Max Verstappen played down his prospects of clinching a fourth consecutive drivers’ world championship at this weekend’s Las Vegas Grand Prix. The Red Bull driver, who claimed a spectacular victory in the rain-hit Sao Paulo Grand Prix three weeks ago, said that triumph had not proved that all his problems were over after a winless 10-race run. Speaking to reporters in Las Vegas, he said it was not certain that he would win again to take the 2024 title.

“At the moment, it’s difficult to tell because if you look at the last few races in the dry of course we didn’t have the pace… It’s not that, because we won in the rain in Brazil, suddenly everything is fixed and everything is looking great again.

“Of course, it gave me a good position in the championship, but also I have to be realistic that we are not the quickest.

“I hope that we can be competitive here. It’s still very unknown with the track temperatures, of course, and like last year very cold.”

The Dutchman leads McLaren’s Lando Norris by 62 points in the title race with three Grands Prix remaining – and 60 points available at the final two races.

This leaves Norris needing to beat Verstappen by three points in Las Vegas to keep his title challenge alive.

“For me, the pressure is from me because I want to do well always, every single weekend,” said Verstappen. “And it is not necessarily about the championship.

“I am just trying to enjoy the weekend as well and to see. How competitive we can be. It is not decided yet so there are still points that we need to be scored.

“Really, it is about how quick I am and how good the car is more than anything else.

“In the last few races, McLaren has been the quickest but last year, Ferrari was very fast here and it can be different every year.

“Other teams have upgrades compared to the last time here so it is difficult to say what can happen here at the moment.”

Drivers ‘bit fed up’ with FIA

Verstappen also expressed surprise at the sudden departure of race director Niels Wittich.

The FIA said on the eve of the Grand Prix that the German had left his role to “pursue new opportunities”, but Wittich said he had been dismissed with three races remaining this year.

Rui Marques has replaced him.

“I think everyone was very surprised to see that with three races to go,” said Verstappen who added his support to the Grand Prix Drivers’ Association”s demands for the FIA to treat them “like adults” with greater consultation and transparency.

The drivers also asked for president Mohammed Ben Sulayem to “consider his own tone and language when talking to our member drivers, or indeed about them.”

“We just wanted to send a letter to make sure that everyone is aware of our concerns and what we want to work on and we’ll see what comes out of that,” said Verstappen.

“At the moment, nothing has happened. I think there was a lot going on with the FIA anyway that they had to deal with – now we’ll see in the coming races and we’ll keep engaging.”

Mercedes’ George Russell said the FIA had not responded to their open letter and admitted drivers, in general, were “a little bit fed up with the whole situation.

“Getting things to change, or promises upheld, seems slightly more challenging,” he said. “Maybe the FIA or the president did not recognise how seriously we all felt.”

Formula One drivers on Thursday blasted the “tone and language” used by FIA president Mohammed Ben Sulayem amid a row over swearing at press conferences. In an open letter, the Grand Prix Drivers’ Association (GPDA) also demanded that competitors be treated like adults. Several drivers, including three-time world champion Max Verstappen of the Netherlands and Monaco’s Charles Leclerc, were recently sanctioned by the FIA for swearing at a press conference. 

And Ben Sulayem has spoken out in favour of measures to ensure drivers no longer use foul language. 

On Thursday, the GPDA hit back with a letter posted on social media regarding ‘Driver Misconduct’.

“There is a difference between swearing intended to insult others and more casual swearing, such as you might use to describe bad weather, or indeed an inanimate object such as an F1 car, or a driving situation,” the letter read.

“We urge the FIA president to consider his own tone and language when talking to our member drivers, or indeed about them, whether in a public forum or otherwise.

“Further, our members are adults. They do not need to be given instructions via the media, about matters as trivial as the wearing of jewellery or underpants.”

Seven-time world champion Lewis Hamilton has clashed with FIA bosses for wearing jewellery at races, with the governing body also reminding drivers of the need to wear flame-resistant underwear. 

The GPDA also stressed its opposition to financial sanctions against drivers and called on Ben Sulayem to clarify how they are imposed and how their proceeds are used.

Relations between Ben Sulayem, team bosses and drivers have deteriorated in recent months. 

The FIA president was accused at the start of the year of trying to derail the 2023 Las Vegas Grand Prix and influence the results of the Saudi Arabian Grand Prix the same year. 

In both cases, the Emirati was cleared by the FIA Ethics Committee.

Lando Norris trimmed two points off Max Verstappen’s lead in Formula One’s drivers’ world championship on Saturday after claiming victory ahead of his McLaren team-mate Oscar Piastri in the sprint race at the Sao Paulo Grand Prix. The title-chasing Briton took the lead on lap 22 of the 24-lap race, when Piastri swapped positions with him before fending off the challenge of three-time champion Verstappen in his Red Bull.

Norris, 24, came home 0.593 seconds clear of Piastri who finished 1.5 seconds ahead of the Dutchman with Charles Leclerc finishing fourth.

Norris admitted he was fortunate to collect his first career sprint race win.

“I’m not proud of it, but it worked well and as a team we had a good day — and thanks to Oscar,” said Norris.

“He deserved to win, but it was good team work and we had great pace. And we executed it well.”

Verstappen leads Norris by 45 points with four races including Sunday’s to come — and one sprint — and it could get worse for the Dutch driver.

At the finish Verstappen — who will start with a five-place grid penalty — was noted for an infringement of the Virtual Safety Car (VSC) rules.

“It was a tricky race,” said Verstappen.

“The pace was good and I’m quite pleased with that although it took quite a long time for me to pass Charles (Leclerc) — I had to wait for a mistake to pass him.”

He added he would be aiming to ‘limit the damage’ to his title defence in Sunday’s race.

McLaren’s one-two success lifted them 35 points clear of Ferrari in the constructors’ championship and ended Verstappen’s run of four consecutive sprint wins this year.

– ‘Dirty air’ –

Piastri said it had been a terrific day for the team.

“It was tricky and very bumpy out there and the racing line is very narrow, but it was a great day for the team to score a lot of points,” said the Australian.

“We showed we are in decent shape.”

George Russell came home sixth for Mercedes ahead of Alpine’s Pierre Gasly and Sergio Perez in the second Red Bull, who collected the final point in eighth.

The race began in hot conditions with an air temperature of 28 degrees Celsius and the track at 47, making it tough on tyres.

The two McLarens made a clean start, Piastri covering off the threat of Norris while Leclerc resisted Verstappen’s early attack for third at the Senna S.

Norris was clearly unhappy to be running a second adrift of his McLaren team-mate, asking his team to request Piastri to move aside, but without avail until lap 10 when he was asked to ‘give Lando DRS’ – a signal to switch places.

But Norris remained stuck in second in Piastri’s ‘dirty air’ as he attempted to make his move, the top four staying in place at half distance in the 24-lap sprint.

By lap 17, tyre-wear was affecting several cars and Norris remained six-tenths adrift.

The team told him “we’re happy to make the switch on the last lap,” shortly before Verstappen, with Drag Reduction System (DRS) and superior pace, swept past Leclerc on the straight.

McLaren finally made their swap on lap 22, leaving Piastri vulnerable in second to the charging Verstappen before a VSC was deployed with two laps to go.

Verstappen, who closed very near to Piastri, immediately complained that he was running too slowly before the race went ‘green’ again for a final flying lap.

Qualifying for the Grand Prix was scheduled to take place later on Saturday amid fears of rain.

File image of Max Verstappen.© AFP