Verstappen: Qatar GP 'one of toughest' races in F1 career

Max Verstappen has labelled the Qatar Grand Prix as "one of the toughest" races of his career after dominating for a 14th win of the season.

Newly-crowned three-time champion Verstappen was untroubled at Lusail in hot and tricky conditions, with drivers struggling throughout.

Fernando Alonso asked for water to be poured over him at a pit-stop, while Logan Sargeant retired with dehydration as Verstappen and second-placed Oscar Piastri both laid on the floor of the cool-down room while waiting for the podium.

It was Verstappen's 49th career win but the Red Bull driver labelled it as a challenge.

Verstappen's challenge

"[It is] one of [the toughest races of my career], and in the top five probably," Verstappen explained.

"I am already sweating quite a bit, but we will enjoy it quite a bit, but there are still a few races [in the season] that we want to try and win."

Verstappen also addressed the tyre stint lengths put in place by the FIA and Pirelli, believing it was not good that lengths were imposed on drivers of 18 laps.

"We should push as long as we can on the tyre and not have pit-stops forced on us," he said.

'We design cars to be good on tyres, and today, we couldn't optimise that fully because that is normally our strong point, but we'll see what we can improve in the future."