Sporting eyes will return their gaze to Lusail this month as Formula One returns to Qatar for the first time since the country successfully hosted the FIFA World Cup. While the world witnessed Leo Messi and Argentina crowned football World Champions ten months ago, the stage is all set for the Lusail International Circuit to host another crowing with the Formula One’s drivers’ Championship likely to be decided at the stunning desert track.
Of course, there’s no doubt on which driver could lift the coveted silverware, with Red Bull Racing’s Max Verstappen in a different league from his rivals this season. The Dutchman went on a remarkable, record-setting, ten-straight win streak from Miami to Monza, with his team undefeated until the recent Ferrari victory in Singapore last month. But showing true World Champion bounce back ability, Verstappen then cruised to victory in Japan to secure the Constructors title for his team.
“Honestly, I’m just very proud of the whole team effort, the whole year already,” said the reigning two-time F1 World Champion after the race in Monza. “I mean, what we are doing at the moment, [in] winning every race this year, is something that we definitely are enjoying because I don’t think that these kinds of seasons come around very often.”
Qatar will also likely see the return of fan-favourite Australian F1 driver Daniel Ricciardo to Red Bull sister team AlphaTauri, following four races spent on the sidelines, after he broke a metacarpal bone in his left hand from a light crash in opening practice for the Dutch Grand Prix.
Ricciardo’s crash looked harmless enough, even one to walk away from, but the damage was done when he forgot to let go of the wild steering wheel on impact; with his first thought in trying to avoid the stricken McLaren of his countryman Oscar Piastri that lay further up turn three. To expedite his recovery, the Honey Badger immediately flew over to Barcelona, where he was operated on by respected MotoGP surgeon Doctor Xavier Mir, who had already helped Aston Martin’s Lance Stroll return to race this year in just 12 days after he broke both wrists and big toe in a cycling crash.
Ricciardo’s return target was soon pushed back from Singapore to Qatar, though, with Marina Bay and the following race at Japan’s Suzuka both highly demanding tracks, the danger of a partial recovery potentially leading to more hand damage, and its reserve, New Zealander Liam Lawson delivering for AlphaTauri.
“Liam has been with us for a while,” said Red Bull’s straight-talking motorsport consultant Doctor Helmut Marko. “He is a tough but very smart man in a fight, a bit like Bruce McLaren. This is certainly someone for the future.”
Qatar itself is also returning to F1, after a one-year hiatus, following its lauded hosting duties last year of the 22nd FIFA World Cup. Up until the World Cup, the nation had kept a low profile on the world stage, despite being primed for tourism as an airline hub with
options for shopping, sightseeing, and water sports in the Arabian Gulf.
Qatar, however, has long been associated with motorsport via its two-wheel top class MotoGP, with Lusail hosting its season opener in all but two seasons since 2007, including 2023, with its first event in 2004.
And it got its initial chance to host Formula 1 during the COVID-19 pandemic in 2021 with Qatar stepping in to fill the gap after Japan was cancelled. A one-year deal was struck, with a year off to host the World Cup, before its 2023 return on a lengthy 10-year contract.
“That was an incredible moment, where we have seen the [long-term] vision of the Qatari Federation to be part of the F1 family,” said Stefano Domenicali, F1’s President and CEO, at the time. “From that moment, of course, we were talking about the future [of the event]. And the step [that led onto] the future of thinking what has been announced, a strong partnership for the future was very, very, short and immediate.”
Incredibly, Qatar is the fourth Middle Eastern nation to host an F1 Grand Prix, again proving the region’s strength in world sport—and the third of four this season, with Abu Dhabi (on Nov 26) the grand finale. And the region—circuits, sponsors, and fans—is fuelling its growth, with value returned to all involved, and beyond.
“It attracts tourism, and it helps to grow the local economy,” said Qatar Motor and Motorcycle Federation President Abdul Rahman bin Abdullatif Al Mannai. “At the same time, it develops the sport and motivates people and the youth to attend and watch. Hopefully they will dream of joining the sport. Formula One has an enormous commercial value, which is (also of value) for Qatar and the whole region.”
The first and—so far—only edition saw another thrilling chapter of the title fight between titans of the sport, Mercedes’ Sir Lewis Hamilton and Red Bull’s Max Verstappen, with Hamilton untouchable in the Qatari desert.
There, the seven-time F1 World Champion kept his dreams of an eighth crown alive with his seventh win for 2021, his second-straight, to go into the last two rounds (in Saudi Arabia and Abu Dhabi) eight points behind Verstappen. “It’s been a hell of a year, so to be at this point of the season and have back-to-back wins is a great feeling,” said Hamilton, though he would go on to lose the championship to Verstappen at the last round in Abu Dhabi after a contentious safety car fiasco that will be spoken about for years to come.
This year, there’s a shake-up to the weekend format with Qatar hosting its first Sprint weekend —comprising a standalone and shortened qualifying and Sprint race on Saturday, and Friday’s qualifying session setting Sunday’s grid. Qatar is the fourth of six Sprint weekends in 2023.
To be fast in Qatar, you need high-downforce setups to tame its fastest curves, which the Red Bull, and Mercedes cars both like. But, cracking the code on the ground in Lusail is what it’s all about.
“To be honest, I think that this track has surprised everyone with how fast it is and the speed that we are doing around the corners,” said Ferrari pilot Carlos Sainz after Friday practice in 2021. “That translates into having to work harder on the set-ups we originally had in mind and having to adapt throughout the day.”
It’s a thrill that’s expected to carry on where it left off in 2021, and potentially an even bigger challenge in the new era cars that came in since the sport was last in Qatar. Bring it on.