Red Bull’s Max Verstappen took his ninth victory of the season at the Qatar Grand Prix.
The Dutchman received a one-place grid penalty after qualifying on pole but took the lead from Mercedes’ George Russell at the start.
McLaren were unable to seal the constructors’ championship title, and the battle with Ferrari will go down to the wire in the last race of the season.
BBC F1 correspondent Andrew Benson answers your questions going into this weekend’s season finale, the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix.
Is Lewis Hamilton’s poor qualifying form a concern for Ferrari, having let go Carlos Sainz, whose performances have been solid lately? – Thomas
Ferrari team principal Frederic Vasseur was asked this question after the Qatar Grand Prix on Sunday.
He said: “Not at all. Have a look at the 50 laps he did in Vegas, starting P10, finishing on the gearbox of (winner George) Russell. I am not worried at all.”
There is no doubt that Hamilton has not had a great final season for Mercedes.
There have been highs – two wins, including a superb drive at the British Grand Prix, and the climb up through the field at Las Vegas mentioned by Vasseur are obvious ones.
But the fact he has been comprehensively out-paced by team-mate George Russell in qualifying, and his general struggles with the car, have been a surprise. And no one – not Hamilton, not Mercedes – seems to really be able to explain why Hamilton has has had these problems.
What’s certain is that he has simply not got on with this year’s Mercedes car, which he finds unpredictable, and he’s not been able to cope with its idiosyncrasies as well as Russell.
How Hamilton gets on at Ferrari next year alongside Charles Leclerc will be one of the key narratives of next season.
Is it not about time some credit be given to George Russell’s qualifying performances? Aren’t they the cause of Lewis Hamilton’s doubts? – Stewart
George Russell certainly deserves credit for his qualifying performances, and his performances in general.
Even before this year, Russell was basically a match for Hamilton in qualifying in 2022 and 2023, and this year he has comprehensively beaten him.
No one in F1 doubts that Russell is one of the out-and-out fastest drivers on the grid, nor that he is a leading light of what you might call the ‘new’ generation of stars along with Max Verstappen, Charles Leclerc and Lando Norris.
But Hamilton’s struggles this year are, most would say, a bit separate to that.
Neither Hamilton nor Mercedes can properly explain just why Hamilton is struggling so much this year compared with Russell. But it can’t be easy going through a year with a difficult car when you know you are leaving at the end of the season.
With everything needed to put a team together and design and build a complex F1 car, can Cadillac really produce a competitive car for 2026? – Clifford
When Formula 1 initially rejected what was at the time a joint bid from Cadillac and the US-based Andretti organisation in January, one of the reasons they gave was the unlikelihood of the team being competitive.
F1 has since changed its tune. And the key difference in F1’s view on the project is that it is now being presented as a factory entry from General Motors, Cadillac’s parent company.
All the same, many of the essentials of the new team are the same, once you drill down into what it is.
It will be run by the same organisation Andretti has put together, but is now being referred to by a different name, TWG, and co-founder Michael Andretti himself is no longer involved.
And the car is being designed by the same team that has been working for Andretti at Silverstone for some time. This is under the leadership of former Renault F1 bosses Pat Symonds, Rob White and Nick Chester.
One key difference is that the new team will not be using a Renault engine when it makes its debut in 2026.
It still needs a customer engine to plug the gap before the bespoke Cadillac engine is ready – probably by 2028 or so – but that is now likely to be a Ferrari.
In theory, Cadillac has the same possibility to produce a competitive 2026 car as any other team – they have the same access to the rules as anyone else.
The FIA seems to be in complete shambles – with the debris error in the Qatar Grand Prix the latest issue. Can F1 pressure for Mohammed Ben Sulayem’s removal? – Jonathan
The short answer to this question is is no. The FIA president is voted in by the FIA member clubs in an election every four years – the next one is in December 2025.
Ben Sulayem is expected to stand again, and at the moment there is no obvious candidate to stand against him, although there are murmurings that at least one person will try.
Having said that, there is serious concern within F1 – both at Liberty Media and among the teams – as to the way the FIA is being run at the moment, and the number of senior people who have ended up leaving this year, one way or another.
This was summed up by Mercedes F1 team boss Toto Wolff on Sunday, when he said: “It could have its own reality show of what is happening at the moment.
“All of us stakeholders need to bear in mind that we need to protect this holy grail of a sport and do it with responsibility and accountability and transparency. It doesn’t come across like that.”
How can Max Verstappen struggle in the Qatar sprint race but then qualify on pole position for the grand prix? – Jack
This comes down to car set-up. Red Bull got it wrong for the sprint and right for the main grand prix, after some changes between the end of the sprint and the start of qualifying.
The effect of these changes surprised even Verstappen himself, who said: “I also didn’t expect that. I mean, we did change a bit on the car, but I never thought it would make such a swing in performance.”
At Mercedes, things went the other way. Russell was competitive in the sprint but not so in the grand prix.
It’s an example of how sensitive modern F1 cars are. A small change can take them in and out of what is known as the ‘set-up window’, and once out, it can have a big effect on performance.
How do F1 drivers get over jet-lag? It’s not easy flying across time zones, yet they’re constantly travelling. Are they just used to it? – Dave
F1 drivers are elite-level athletes with incredible skill, but they are still human beings, and they get affected by jet-lag like everyone else.
So, in Las Vegas, for example, Carlos Sainz said this about the massive time-zone shift between there and Qatar: “It is down to the fitness that you’ve accumulated during the first part of the year and keeping yourself fit and healthy.
“It will be quite a shock to the body, but If you’re fit, you’re healthy, and you’ve managed to keep yourself warm here, don’t get any colds, take melatonin whenever you have to take melatonin, and go to sleep whenever you have to go to sleep, it should get it done.”
George Russell added: “There’s not really anything you can do in these days. Preparation needed to happen beforehand. And it’s going to be a challenge for everyone, but we’re all in the same boat.
“So no one’s going to be on peak condition personally, but it’s just about limiting the losses.”
Melatonin, by the way, is a hormone you can take that promotes sleep. It’s available by prescription in the UK and over the counter in the US.
