THE BIG PICTURE: Ignoring yellow flags has always been a serious issue met with serious penalties. Norris' penalty was not unprecedented. The issue was how the whole thing was handled over what should have been a relatively minor situation. Now, the Hamilton penalty was unprecedented as speeding in pit lane has never been met with a drive through.

EVENT: Another Middle Eastern race where the crowd comes from outside the Middle East, and the locals who do show up barely know what to make of it.

TRACK: This is a fast track, so watching the cars is fun. But, the track was designed for motorcyles, so cars don't make a good race on it ... unless bizarre stuff happens. Otherwise, it's difficult to pass when most of the turns are fast sweepers. And they made it worse by shortening the DRS zone.

SPRINT SHOOTOUT: McLaren fires the first salvo across Ferrari's bow, Russell plays interloper, Hulkenberg and Lawson makes it to SQ3, Bottas has a bit of fun, and Perez absolutely blows.

SPRINT: That was a surprise twist at the end as Norris pays back Piastri for the Brazil favor. Otherwise, the race was basically a DRS train set up by McLaren to protect their 1-2, with Leclerc and Hamilton providing some great entertainment value.

SPRINT START: Norris gets off cleanly, Piastri waits till the second turn to get Russell around the outside no less, Verstappen has a poor start even passed by Hulkenberg, and Magnussen gains five spots while Lawson losses seven. And Perez can't even start from pit lane correctly!

QUALIFYING: Verstappen (and Red Bull's) brilliance pulls a pole lap out of nowhere, Mercedes speed continues to be for real, McLaren is right there, Perez actually makes it to Q3 but nowhere close to Max, and Magnussen is the Haas driver to shine.

RACE: If not for the mirror fracas, this would have been a dullish race. Instead, we got talking points to carry us through the winter.

START: Don't piss off Verstappen as he was not going to be denied gaining the lead, but it was Norris, of all drivers, who had the best start of his career flying by Russell and nearly getting Verstappen. Meanwhile, Hulkenberg sets off a three-car chain reaction and Stroll sends Albon into a spin.

VERSTAPPEN: Max was his early season self. Taking a car he was confident in and controlling a race with ease.

RED BULL: Sure Newey did a lot, but this weekend proved the other engineers can solve problems just as well and turn an undriveable car to a winning car in mere hours.

PEREZ: His days are numbered.

NORRIS: Lando did deserve a penalty. No doubt about that. It was his mistake which now puts pressure on his team in the last race.

LECLERC: Charles was there to make sure that pressure is applied.

PIASTRI: While Oscar salvaged a good chunk of points.

SAINZ: With Carlos wishing he could have gotten by Gasly.

FERRARI: Abu Dhabi is supposed to be a Prancing Horse track.

MCLAREN: But the papaya team shouldn't have problems with it either.

RUSSELL: He may have been taken off of Verstappen's Christmas card list, but he continues to outshine Hamilton.

HAMILTON: While Lewis appears to have totally given up.

MERCEDES: Their pace disappeared at the worst time of the weekend.

GASLY: A fantastic effort by Pierre.

ALPINE: Which put the most dysfunctional team back ahead of Haas for sixth place.

OCON: While Esteban is done with them before the last race.

DOOHAN: And Jack will get thrown into the fire as the team battles for a lucrative midfield position.

HAAS: They will need two solid efforts by their two drivers in their last race for the American team to try and overcome Alpine.

LAWSON: This time Liam's aggressiveness caught up with him.

SAUBER: Points! They scored points! They. Scored. Points.

ZHOU: And it was Guanyu who scored them, not Bottas.

FIA: What an absolute mess. A president who's acting like a petulant child. Top level people quiting or being fired by text messages from assistants. And continuous controversy over penalties and rulings with no transparency or ownership.

F2: You can't get any closer unless it's a tie heading into the final weekend. Brazilian and future Sauber F1 driver, Gabriel Bortoleto, is just half a point ahead of Frenchman and perhaps future RB F1 driver, Isack Hadjar. Oliver Bearman won the sprint race while Paul Aron took the feature race, his first F2 victory, after Bortoleto suffered a penalty.

F1 ACADEMY: Brit Abbi Pulling started third and finished second in the first race which is all she needed to clinch the championship. Frenchwoman Doriane Pin, finally 100% healthy, dominated from pole. Unfortunately, the second race was cancelled due to extensive wall repair from a previous race.

WORD OF THE WEEKEND: Mirror.

STAT OF THE WEEKEND: 21 -- The points lead McLaren holds over Ferrari with 44 maximum constructor points available.

HISTORICAL STAT OF THE WEEKEND: Qatar is the second flattest country in the world. [Editor Note: We don't know either what this has anything to do with a racing historical stat of the weekend. But Deep Throttle needed something, so he picked this harebrained fact.]

TWEET OF THE WEEKEND: From @RajniRajni2210

Sergio Perez is the first driver ever to be overtaken exiting the pitlane from which they started a race.

Creating new records every year
#F1 #F1Sprint #QatarGP

QUOTE OF THE WEEKEND: Max Verstappen's race engineer, Gianpiero Lambiase, saying over the radio after the win, referring to the controversial qualifying penalty, "Karma is a wonderful thing. You definitely did not drive unnecessarily slowly today."

QUOTE OF THE WEEKEND RUNNERUP: When English is not your first language, as Yuki Tsunoda explains what he thought he heard over the radio, "My engineers said: 'There's a beaver.' But why is there a beaver in the Middle East? Like how is it possible a beaver is in the Middle East? But okay, maybe there's a surprise with global warming -- kicking a lot of interesting things in the Earth."

SCHEDULE: The longest season in history finally comes to an end. Even Deep Throttle is pooped. At least we still have the excitement of the constructors battle between two F1 stalwarts.

Copyright © 2024 by Deep Throttle. All Rights Reserved.