Don’t let the
title of this column misdirect you – Max Verstappen brilliantly won the 2024
Qatar Grand Prix. The 2024 champion’s win, the ninth of his season, was a bit
of a surprise given that he just scraped into the points in the Saturday sprint
race. But, by now, all of Formula 1 and those who watch should know never to
discount the 4-time champion. Charles Leclerc and Oscar Piastri completed the
podium and move the all-important fight for the constructor’s title onto the
season’s final race at this weekend’s Abu Dhabi Grand Prix.
Elsewhere,
George Russell was fourth, while Pierre Gasly delivered yet another impressive
drive to finish fifth for Alpine. Carlos Sainz, despite suffering a puncture
(more on that later), was sixth ahead of Fernando Alonso in seventh. It was a
stand-out day and a stand-out drive for Zhou Guanyu, who came home in eighth to
score Sauber’s first points of the season. Kevin Magnussen was ninth ahead of a
recovering Lando Norris in tenth.
And here is
where we pivot. The 2024 Qatar Grand Prix was marred by some of the most
baffling decision-making we’ve seen from race control in recent memory. In the
final stint of the race, Alex Albon’s right-hand wing mirror fell off his car
and unmistakably presented an obvious safety hazard from the moment it
happened. The debris landed on the main straight—off the racing line but still
in a location where it posed a significant risk. Despite this, the race
director took no immediate action.
Lap after lap,
the mirror remained on the track, and inevitably, disaster struck. Valtteri
Bottas ran over it, shattering the debris and spreading shards of carbon across
the circuit. This directly led to punctures for both Lewis Hamilton and Carlos
Sainz, derailing their races. Only after this was the Safety Car was deployed.
Let’s not sugarcoat this: leaving the mirror unattended was sheer negligence. A
Virtual Safety Car or full Safety Car should have been deployed instantly. How
hard is it to prioritise driver safety? Evidently, for the FIA, it’s a
monumental task. Lest we forget, the new guy, Rui Marques, has been in charge
for two races and has not endeared himself to anyone.
And then there’s
Lando Norris. His failure to sufficiently slow under yellow flags was a clear
infringement of the rules—no argument there. But a ten-second stop-and-go
penalty? That’s just one step below outright disqualification. It was an
extreme and wildly disproportionate punishment for an error that, while
deserving of sanction, didn’t warrant such severity. In a race already defined
by chaos, the FIA managed to double down on their incompetence with draconian
overreach.
This race was a
case study of how poor decision-making from those in charge can ruin the
integrity of the competition. The FIA must answer for these blunders because if
they don’t, drivers and teams will continue to pay the price for their
inability to manage even the simplest of situations. Oh, and they’ll become the
laughing stock of the motorsport world.
