Max Verstappen sets up titanic three-way title showdown as Lando Norris suffers desert disaster

Max Verstappen won the Qatar Grand Prix to deny Lando Norris F1 title glory and set up a three-way battle in Abu Dhabi with Oscar Piastri. 

Norris knew that victory from second on the grid would secure him his first title at the first attempt, but was jumped by Verstappen off the line to run second behind Piastri, with the race being run under 25-lap maximum tyre stint lengths. 

An early safety car on Lap 7 proved to be the decisive moment of the race, with the leading McLarens deciding not to pit whilst the rest of the field did so, led by Verstappen in third on the restart. 

This meant the McLarens would be faced with making up the required 26s for a pit-stop in clear air, and passing Verstappen on-track to win the race. 

Piastri pitted on Lap 24, with Norris doing so on Lap 25, as Verstappen cycled back to the lead ahead of the rest of the field stopping again on Lap 32. 

Piastri re-took the lead, but was not pulling away from Verstappen, pitting early on Lap 42 to rejoin 18.1s behind, with Norris pitting again on Lap 44, but crucially rejoining behind Carlos Sainz and Kimi Antonelli to run fifth. 

Piastri did not get within 10s of Verstappen as Norris struggled to pass Antonelli, but on Lap 56 of 57, Norris passed Antonelli who ran wide.

The end result was Verstappen-Piastri-Sainz-Norris-Antonelli. 

It means the points going into Abu Dhabi are 

1. Norris - 408
2. Verstappen - 396
3. Piastri - 392

Here

Owing to the difficulty in overtaking and the formation of DRS trains, the rest of the race was relatively uneventful. 

George Russell took sixth ahead of Fernando Alonso, Charles Leclerc, Liam Lawson, and Yuki Tsunoda who rounded out the points, as Isack Hadjar suffered a puncture two laps from home whilst running sixth. 

The non-points scorers were Yuki Tsunoda, Alex Albon, Lewis Hamilton, Gabriel Bortoleto, Franco Colapinto, Esteban Ocon, Pierre Gasly and Lance Stroll.

The non-finishers were Oliver Bearman and Hulkenberg.