Car number 63 started the Qatar Grand Prix from pole position but Max Verstappen immediately seized the lead on his way to victory number 63.
He and the other two multiple champions on the grid – Lewis Hamilton and Fernando Alonso – now have 200 grand prix victories between them. Hamilton scored his 105th win earlier this year but over a decade has passed since Alonso’s 32nd career win at the 2013 Spanish Grand Prix.
Speaking of centuries, Alonso officially recorded his 400th grand prix start last weekend, and marked it with a strong run to seventh, Aston Martin’s best result since the Azerbaijan Grand Prix.
Verstappen led Sunday’s race from start to finish. It’s the second time this year he’s held the lead throughout a race, along with the season-opening Bahrain Grand Prix, which was also 57 laps. The only other drivers to do the same this year were Charles Leclerc in Monaco and Lando Norris in Singapore.
This was the third Qatar Grand Prix, none of which have seen a change in leader after the first lap. Normally only street circuits produce races with so few changes of lead. The last change of lead in Monaco came in the rain-affected 2022 race.
The only other track on the calendar with no lead changes in its last three events is Singapore. However the last race before that, in 2019, had four different leaders (the 2020 and 2021 races were cancelled due to the Covid-19 pandemic).
At least on this occasion the Qatar Grand Prix wasn’t won by the pole-winner, though Verstappen would no doubt have something to say about who was the rightful occupant of the pole position spot last weekend. He immediately passed George Russell, who claimed pole due to Verstappen’s grid penalty for holding the Mercedes driver up in qualifying.
This was Verstappen’s second penalty in three qualifying sessions in Qatar. He picked up a five-place grid penalty for failing to slow for double waved yellow flags in 2021: The same infraction he spotted Norris committing during last weekend’s race.
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Russell therefore started from pole position for the sixth time in his grand prix career. This was also the first time he has taken pole in back-to-back races. He now has as many pole positions as rival Carlos Sainz Jnr, as well as Phil Hill, Emerson Fittipaldi, Alan Jones, Jean-Pierre Jabouille, Carlos Reutemann and Ralf Schumacher.
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