In the midst of the fight for the Constructors’ Championship at the Qatar GP, it was not the on-track battles or the race pace that were the protagonists but Rui Marques, the new FIA F1 race director, and his team of stewards

The race director’s actions altered the duel between McLaren and Ferrari with those mistakes from Race Control benefited one of the two teams clearly ahead of the finale in Abu Dhabi.

Ferrari gain from FIA chaos

After issuing an incomplete explanation and having put the safety of the drivers at risk in between that, it is undoubtedly Ferrari who benefited the most from all the chaos generated.

Let’s start by putting into context the race situation before Alexander Albon lost his wing mirror in the middle of the finish line straight on lap 29, the trigger for all the controversy.

Lando Norris was comfortably P2, +1.7s behind Max Verstappen in the lead. Oscar Piastri was P3 with 2.3 seconds ahead of Charles Leclerc in P4 and Carlos Sainz in P5.

At this point, George Russell had already disappeared from the equation as his +7.0s slow pit stop made him fall behind traffic after rejoining the track and without getting the hard tyre into temperature, he lost any chance of regaining the podium position he held before his pit stop.

And given the race conditions with little overtaking, no attacks on track and symptoms of high tyre degradation, everything seemed to indicate that the race order would remain the same after the compulsory pit stops of the leading group.

With this race situation, McLaren accumulated 33 points for the Constructors’ Championship and Ferrari 22. That is 11 points difference, which was not enough for McLaren to secure its first Constructor title since 1998 as they needed a difference of 15 points over Ferrari in Qatar.

F1 2024 head-to-heads going into Abu Dhabi season finale

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👉 F1 2024: Head-to-head qualifying record between team-mates

By lap 30, the double yellow flags were waved by the marshals on the straight when Albon had just lost his wing mirror and Norris mistakenly ignored and didn’t slow down his speed by which he would later be severely punished. As we have already explained, the severe penalty is correct but a safety car should have been deployed immediately to avoid this situation in the first instance. Just as it would also have prevented the punctures of Carlos Sainz and Lewis Hamilton.

Valtteri Bottas, with no visible warning about this hazard on track on lap 33 about Albon’s rear-view mirror, obeyed the blue flags to leave Charles Leclerc through on the main straight. As he pulled away from the racing line, he ran over the Williams’ car piece, shattering it and leaving debris and glass all over the track.

Sainz was the first driver to encounter this disaster without any clear indication on track. Race Direction endangered the safety of all the drivers, but especially in this case that of Sainz and Hamilton by not pressing the Safety Car button early on at the end of lap 29 before any driver ran over the wing mirror.

With Sainz and Hamilton running slowly and with the possibility of losing their tyres on track and the added debris and glass on track from Albon’s wing mirror it seemed that the Safety Car could not be delayed much longer. Or so McLaren thought.

Verstappen and Norris continued on track while the papaya team called Piastri in thinking that the Safety Car could be deployed quickly given the race situation and they would be in contention for the win. This was not the case and the Australian driver did not benefit from any time reduction in his pit stop.

Finally, the Safety Car was deployed on lap 35. In this way Verstappen, Norris and Leclerc were able to pit with the race neutralised and benefit from a time advantage before the pack regrouped.

Leclerc really benefited from this as he was able to gain P3 in detriment of Piastri and later climbed to P2 due to Norris’ stop and go penalty. The big losers, along with Piastri, were Carlos Sainz and Lewis Hamilton who had to complete a full lap with a puncture and also the Safety Car was not deployed after their respective pit stops making their loss of track time even more drastic.

Piastri was unable to overtake Leclerc in the final 15 laps after the race start of a third Safety Car and had to settle with P3. Norris was only able to move up to P10 after serving his penalty on lap 44.

Norris at least managed to set the fastest lap of the race as he fitted the soft tyre for the final 13 laps. Carlos Sainz, on the other hand, could not cope with the Alpine’s high top speed to overtake Pierre Gasly and finished P6 despite also being severely harmed by race direction in Qatar.

So, of the 11-point lead over Ferrari before all the FIA chaos on lap 30, McLaren finished with a disadvantage of nine points to the Italian team at the end the race. However, thanks to the 1-2 in the Sprint, McLaren only lost three points in total this weekend.

With only one race left in the season, Ferrari is still alive in the fight against McLaren. The Woking team has, however, a 21-point lead over the Maranello-based outfit and is in a great position to clinch its first Constructors’ Championship since the 1998 season in Abu Dhabi – despite what happened in Qatar.

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