Max Verstappen F1 title overshadowed as drivers left ill after brutal grand prix

The 2023 Qatar Grand Prix weekend will be remembered not for Max Verstappen winning his third world title in the Sprint race, but for pushing F1 drivers beyond their physical limits in conditions that bordered on dangerous.

A cocktail of events mixed together to create conditions in which drivers were physically sick during the race and one even claimed to have lost consciousness at times. 

The first ingredient was the timing of the race.

During the only previous running of the Qatar GP in 2021, it had been held in late November before a year off for the FIFA World Cup, but upon its return, the race was given a slot in the first weekend of October, when temperatures were in the low 40 degrees Celsius region. There was also a lack of wind.

Secondly, tyre supplier Pirelli was forced to introduce mandatory stint lengths for the tyres owing to concerns that repeated running over the kerbs in the ultra-high-speed final sector could cause problems with the carcass becoming detached from the tread in the race.

Drivers were limited to 18 laps per tyre, which in a 57-lap race meant a minimum three-stop race, with drivers able to push flat out with no concerns over usual tyre degradation. 

The combination of all these factors created the dangerous scenes during the race.

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The brutal conditions

After finishing seventh for Alpine, Esteban Ocon revealed he had been vomiting inside his helmet from as early as Lap 15, but soldiered on to score for his team, whilst Lance Stroll explained how he was losing consciousness.

Finishing ninth on the road but 11th after penalties for exceeding track limits, the Canadian claimed that during some corners, especially the triple-apex fast right-handers before the left-flick in the final sector, he was losing consciousness towards the end of the race.

Meanwhile, Williams' rookie Logan Sargeant retired after suffering from heatstroke and was taken to the medical centre.

After 40 laps of effort, he became dehydrated, with the team telling him there was "no shame" in retiring if he felt unwell. 

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Why did it happen?

But why hadn't these conditions been seen in the Sprint race? 

The Sprint, won for the first time by Oscar Piastri, was a 19-lap affair, most of which was run behind the safety car after the collision involving Sergio Perez, which formally crowned Verstappen as world champion.

There was simply not enough time in the Sprint at full racing speed for the conditions to make themselves known, nor at the start of the race, with a first lap safety car deployment after Lewis Hamilton tried the hero move on Verstappen and team-mate George Russell at Turn 1, and ended up looking like the zero after colliding with Russell. 

Verstappen ultimately would win the race, as the FIA committed to launching an investigation. 

For 2024, additional driver cooling vents were mandated on the front of the car, with steps taken to declare a 'heat hazard' if the temperature was forecast to be above 31 degrees Celsius at any time during the weekend.

This was introduced for the first time at the 2025 Singapore GP, with the driver cooling vests being used for the first time, although they were not mandatory. Every car had to have the system installed, with it being driver choice as to use it or not, although it is set for mandatory introduction in 2026, to the opposition of some, including Verstappen.