Verstappen storms to Qatar win after Hamilton’s and Russell’s ‘gutting’ crash
Max Verstappen was as serene as ever in winning the Qatar Grand Prix for Red Bull but in his wake an altogether more tempestuous wind was engulfing Lewis Hamilton and his Mercedes teammate George Russell. The pair clashed at the Lusail circuit in the most serious flashpoint between them since they became teammates in 2022.
Each initially blamed the other, with Russell clearly furious because he had been an innocent party, but Hamilton later held his hands up for causing the crash which ended his race.
What was supposed to be a celebratory coronation for Verstappen, who took his third title on Saturday, was also overshadowed by an embarrassing fiasco over tyre safety concerns.
The victory was once more completely in Verstappen’s control at the front as he beat the McLarens of Oscar Piastri and Lando Norris into second and third, with Piastri doing superbly in taking his best GP finish having also won the sprint on Saturday.
However it was the opening-lap clash between Hamilton and Russell that will prompt the greater ramifications.
Verstappen had held his lead into turn one but with Hamilton trying to go round the outside of Russell the pair touched and Hamilton spun off, losing his right rear wheel. Hamilton was turning in on Russell, who had nowhere to go with Verstappen on his inside.
“Come on, what the hell, two races in a row,” said Russell, referring to how Hamilton pushed him wide at the last round in Suzuka. “I got taken out by my own teammate,” Hamilton said.
Russell apologised to the team but insisted he had nowhere to go. “Sorry guys. I wasn’t even looking behind,” he said. “I was just focused ahead and he came from nowhere.” It is the first time Hamilton has gone out of a race after clashing with a teammate since Nico Rosberg hit him, taking them both out, at Spain in 2016.
“I don’t think George probably had anywhere to go, I am happy to take responsibility,” Hamilton said after returning to the paddock. “It is massively gutting to have a result like this.” He later apologised on X, formerly Twitter, and insisted the incident would not affect his relationship with his teammate.
This year in qualifying for the Spanish GP, stewards gave Russell a warning when he changed direction suddenly and hit Hamilton. In a season where Mercedes have struggled for pace and are fighting to secure second in the constructors’ championship, the two drivers clashing from second and third on the grid is a scenario the team may well deem unacceptable.
“We will talk about it and go through it and hopefully it will never happen again,” Bradley Lord, head of communications at Mercedes, said.
When Hamilton was in a ferocious battle with Rosberg, which also included the Finn hitting the British driver at Spa in 2014 and incidents in Austria, Canada and Japan, the team imposed stricter rules of engagement on the pair, which stipulated they were free to race but only within the confines of not taking one another out. This incident raises the potential for the team to impose boundaries on their drivers once more.
The relationship between Hamilton and Russell has been respectful and friendly but this clash will put pressure on them. Russell is the junior partner but in his fifth season in F1 has made clear he will not be intimidated by Hamilton. He went on to return a very solid comeback for fourth place and said he was confident the pair would speak and clear the air.
The team will nonetheless require a serious debrief. Mercedes have ambitions to be challenging Red Bull again next season and if they do so can illafford to drop points from cross-garage incidents.
F1, too, must consider how it managed to end up racing on a circuit that raised such serious concerns that it was forced to impose mandatory tyreuse limits for the race that left the sport, a multibillion-dollar global business, looking amateurish.
The tyre manufacturer Pirelli had identified the problem on Friday evening: that the 50mm “pyramid” kerbs used at Lusail were damaging the tyre sidewalls to the extent they risked causing a blowout and the FIA – the sport’s governing body – imposed an 18lap maximum stint length for the GP.
The Lusail circuit held its only previous race in 2021, when there were a spate of tyre failures, identified by Pirelli at the time as being caused by the kerbs. The track was since adjudged as safe to use but no F1 car had run there before Friday and nor had there been other events that might have flagged potential problems.
Charles Leclerc was fifth for Ferrari, Fernando Alonso sixth for Aston Martin, Esteban Ocon in seventh for Alpine, Valtteri Bottas and Guanyu Zhou in eighth and 10th for Alfa Romeo and Sergio Pérez in ninth for Red Bull.