An entertaining Qatar Grand Prix is behind us as we see a team finally break a scoreless drought and some questionable decisions return to the sport from the powers that be.
We also had some payback for a certain Australian driver and a great setup for not one but two Championship showdowns next weekend at the final round.
Get you excited for what’s to come? Let’s get into the latest edition of F1 talking points to whet that excitement further.
What on earth is happening upstairs?
It seems like it had been a while since we had any real drama over race decisions from the powers that be, but Qatar was just a head scratcher.
On the Saturday, we had Max Verstappen being given a unique one place grid penalty for impeding George Russell in qualifying. This happened when both were on slow down laps and after Russell complained to the stewards about it.
Then in the race we had the very slow reaction of the race director to implement a safety car after there was clear debris on the circuit. It wasn’t until two punctures happened in quick succession to Lewis Hamilton and Carlos Sainz that a safety car was put out, leaving many scratching their heads as to the delay.
Finally, we had the penalty given to Lando Norris for not slowing down under double waved yellows. Norris getting a penalty isn’t questionable, but the decision to give him the most severe form of a penalty is.
Rui Marques was appointed race director at the last round in Las Vegas after the sudden departure of former race director Niels Wittich. And after a seemingly positive start a week ago, Marques all of a sudden will have many questions thrown at him as to just what on earth happened this weekend in Qatar.
With one more round remaining in the season, here’s hoping that these questions and issues can be solved before we go racing again in 2025.
Sauber finally break drought
Did we just witness the greatest moment of 2024 with Zhou Guanyu finishing in eighth at the Qatar Grand Prix?
Sure, there have been some epic races and epic moments across the year, but who doesn’t love a true underdog story and seeing a back running team finally breakthrough for their first points of the season?
Last week in Las Vegas, Zhou was tracking well to possibly score Sauber’s first points for 2024 but ultimately fell back to finish the race in 13th place. This time around he held on to claim four very valuable points for the team.
And it was so close to being a double points finish for the team, with Valtteri Bottas running in the points late in the race before ultimately being passed by the fast-finishing Norris recovering from his penalty.
No matter how you classify great moments across a season, there is no doubting seeing Sauber finally getting some points on the board in the penultimate race has to be in the conversation, particularly given how much they have been struggling across the year.
And as they enter their final year on the grid as Sauber before switching into Audi, it will give the famous team a massive boost heading into 2025.
Looking forward to two final race showdowns
While we won’t have a final race showdown for the Drivers’ Championship for the third consecutive season, we do at least have two Constructors’ battles to look forward to.
Of course we have the main one, the Championship itself. McLaren lead Ferrari by 21 points heading into Abu Dhabi, with both teams gunning for their first Championship in more than 15 years.
McLaren last tasted Constructors’ Championship glory in 1998, while for Ferrari it came in 2008, adding extra incentive to these two great rivals heading into the last round.
Then we have to look down to the battle for sixth place in the Constructors’ Championship between Alpine, Haas and RB.
After Pierre Gasly’s fifth place in the main race in Qatar, the French team leads Haas by five points, with RB a further eight points behind.
While sixth might not seem that exciting, there is a massive $30 million difference in prize money for a team finishing in sixth and a team finishing in eighth. That is a lot of money for any team to be fighting for, especially in the budget cap era of Formula 1.
It all makes the final round of the season even more interesting next weekend.
Papaya rules reset as Norris and Piastri start 2025 on even ground
The last two sprint rounds have seen McLaren dominate the sprint races and leave with a 1-2 result.
However, both results should’ve been the reverse of the other, with Lando Norris inheriting a win from Oscar Piastri in Sao Paulo, and then Piastri doing so from Norris in Qatar.
Of course both situations were very different, but with each driver handing over a win to the other, that surely clears the slate at the team when it comes to team orders and what is owed to each driver heading into a new season in 2025.
The team’s ‘Papaya Rules’ have been a big topic of conversation this season, especially in the midst of a Championship fight from Lando Norris in the Drivers’ Championship that Piastri was never a part of. Now that the slate is clean, 2025 shapes up to be extra interesting, especially if Oscar finds himself in a better position to also hunt from the Drivers’ title.
Does that mean that there won’t be team orders moving forward? Of course not. But it does reset the ledger for both drivers to not have anything holding over their heads when it comes to future situations where team orders may present themselves.
Will Hamilton miss Abu Dhabi?
Lewis Hamilton right now is just baffling.
One of the greatest drivers of all time is seemingly hating his time in the sport, as his incredibly successful tenure with Mercedes draws to a close.
For the second race out of the last three, Hamilton has wanted to be anywhere else besides his race car, with the seven-times World Champion even requesting to retire the car during the race based on how slow he felt they were. This begs the question: will he race in Abu Dhabi next weekend?
It’s a legitimate question to ask given just how his attitude has been recently, and just how out of sorts he has been in the final few races of 2024.
He was asked about the prospect of sitting out the rest of the season in Las Vegas after his similar complaints in Brazil, and Hamilton admitted it had crossed his mind. Vegas then saw one of his best races of the year, calming down that attitude ever so slightly. But it all returned in Qatar, with some now questioning whether or not we have seen Hamilton drive for the team for the very last time.
Would it be a shame for Hamilton to not get a fitting farewell for Mercedes in Abu Dhabi? Absolutely. He deserves a sendoff in what has been the most successful driver/team pairing in the history of the sport.
But would sitting out the final race also help him before switching gears into Ferrari in 2025? Possibly, yes. It would allow him more time to recoup and focus on what is going to be a massive year for him next season, and also give new Mercedes signing Kimi Antonelli an early F1 debut to help sink his teeth into the sport before next year.
The next few days will be very interesting to see just what comes from this situation and whether or not we will see Hamilton in silver for one last time.
This article was originally written for The Roar. You can read the published version here
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