Postcards from… Lusail

The Pit Stop Boys – that famed bunch of Dutch crooners who created the “Max, Max, Super Max” anthem, which has become the battle cry of the ‘Orange Army' – will have experienced a surge of downloads on Saturday night, while admittedly not exactly troubling Mozart.

From the beginning, there was never any doubt that Max Verstappen would claim his third title in Qatar, given that it was enough for him to score just three points during a weekend that had a sprint race on offer as well. In fact, Max got the job done on Saturday without even having to win the race. He ended up second in the sprint but mathematically became champion on lap 11 out of the 19 scheduled, after his team mate Sergio Perez (along with Alpine's Esteban Ocon) became one of the slices of bread in a Nico Hulkenberg sandwich, ending up in the gravel. On Sunday however, the now three-time world champion took the 49th win of his career, meaning that the Dutchman has five races left this year to overhaul Sebastian Vettel and Alain Prost on the list of all-time winners (on 51 and 53 career victories respectively) and become the third-most successful driver in Formula 1 history – in terms of wins at least. Can he make it? You never know in this sport, but the odds certainly seem stacked in Max's favour…

Oscar Piastri! If there was one driver who really earned the plaudits as well as the points in Qatar, it was McLaren's star Australian. He claimed his first win in only his rookie year – albeit in the sprint race. But he was also fastest in the shootout and claimed his best result of the season in the actual grand prix, ending up second ahead of his team mate Lando Norris.

It was a magic moment for the team led by Andrea Stella. In the last three races, McLaren have strung together an impressive 104 points: 30 more than Red Bull. Fourth place in the constructors' championship is no longer just a dream: only 11 points are needed to catch up Aston Martin (which has taken just 13 points from the last three races). The double podium in Qatar also meant that McLaren has made more than 500 podium appearances throughout its illustrious history. Ferrari, with 803 podiums, is still a long way off in the lead – but for McLaren, being second on that prestigious list is still an important achievement.

Mercedes headed home from Qatar knowing that they had missed a trick. The clash between George Russell and Lewis Hamilton just a few hundred metres after the start put the seven-time world champion out of action and forced his team mate into a challenging fightback. The way that Russell made his way up through the field afterwards shows just how Mercedes could have fought for victory under different circumstances, taking advantage of the fact that Red Bull's superiority in managing tyre degradation was mitigated by the FIA's limit on the maximum number of laps on one set. At one point, Russell was even back into second, before making the fourth and final pit stop that put him back into fourth place by the flag – a finish that seemed almost impossible after the chaotic first lap.

Perhaps the one positive point for the three-pointed star during the Qatar weekend – if you can call it that – was Lewis Hamilton's sportsmanship. Having seen the replay of the start incident, he immediately went to apologise to his team mate at the finish. A recovering Toto Wolff might have suffered flashbacks of Barcelona in 2016, when Hamilton and Nico Rosberg came together at the start of the race, leaving the way clear for Verstappen to claim his very first victory. At least this time though, one of his cars could keep going…

McLaren's incredible weekend was highlighted by another incredible benchmark: the fastest pit stop in the history of Formula 1. The second stop for Lando Norris (on lap 27) was done in about 1.8 seconds: around two-hundredths of a second faster than the record previously held by Red Bull for a Verstappen stop at the 2019 Brazilian Grand Prix. Since then, tyres have become much bigger and heavier with a move to 18 inches, which makes McLaren's feat even more impressive.

Alfa Romeo clinched its best result of the season in Qatar. The six points that Valtteri Bottas and Guanyu Zhou brought home for finishing in eighth and ninth respectively allowed the future Audi team to overtake Haas and claim eighth place in the constructors' classification. More than a year has passed (Canada 2022, in fact) since Alfa managed to place both its drivers inside the top 10. The fight at the back is now becoming increasingly intense: Williams is seventh on 23 points, followed by Alfa on 16, Haas on 12, and AlphaTauri last with five points.