Hamilton only realised Verstappen won Qatar mid‑interview: “I thought Piastri did”
Lewis Hamilton walked out of the car in Lusail and into the TV pen with a surprise waiting for him: he didn’t know who’d just won the race.
The seven-time World Champion — now firmly out of this year’s title picture with Ferrari — was told during his post‑race media rounds that Max Verstappen had taken victory at the Qatar Grand Prix. Hamilton’s reaction was instant and unfiltered.
“Max won?! Oh shoot, I didn’t know that. Wow, holy s**t. I thought Piastri won.”
It’s not often a driver of Hamilton’s experience loses track of the front of the field, but that’s where Sunday left him: buried in his own race, fighting the car and the traffic rather than the storyline up front. In its own way, the moment said more about Hamilton’s evening than any lap time could.
Once the surprise wore off, he pivoted to the bigger picture. Asked about Verstappen’s relentless form, Hamilton didn’t reach for excuses.
“We all know Max does a great job,” he said. “He’s got a phenomenal team behind him… they’ve had the best car really over the last four years. Maybe less so at the beginning of this year, but they somehow came back. It’s obviously a great car, and he does an amazing job with it. Can’t fault him.”
That’s the reality Hamilton sees from inside the cockpit: Red Bull and Verstappen remain the benchmark, even as McLaren’s bright young pair of Oscar Piastri and Lando Norris keep them honest on Sundays. Hamilton, meanwhile, is playing a different game — tuning the Ferrari’s windows, hunting small points, and trying to drag better weekends out of a car that hasn’t given him a title shot in 2025.
If the title talk was respectful, his view of the race itself was not. Lusail has long promised more than it’s delivered, and Hamilton didn’t hide his frustration with the difficulty of overtaking.
“Being critical, when I was in the Drivers’ Briefing, I asked them the question,” he explained. “We’ve seen last year there was no overtaking — why not, for example, increase the DRS? And they’re like, ‘Oh, hmm, hadn’t thought of that.’ I’m like, ‘What are you doing?’”
He also pointed at the pit lane delta — a long, punishing 26 seconds by his count — and an extended run to the end of the lane that, in his view, needlessly handcuffs strategy.
“If you go to the end of the pit lane, there’s a long space that’s just unnecessary to be the pit lane. It’s probably the worst race for us to go to when you can’t overtake. Beautiful place and really well hosted. So they’ve got to come up with some other solution.”
It’s classic Hamilton: praise where it’s due, and a nudge (or shove) at the system when he thinks the sport’s tying itself in knots. He’s not alone in questioning Lusail’s passing prospects, either; too many afternoons here have turned into DRS trains and tyre management exercises.
As for the championship picture, Verstappen’s win resets the mood heading toward the final leg, no matter how strong McLaren has looked in patches. Piastri’s name keeps popping up for a reason; Norris, too, has put himself in the mix. But every time Verstappen and Red Bull find clean air, they still know what to do with it.
Hamilton? He’s in a different chapter now. The Ferrari move was meant to re-energise the back end of his career, and on some weekends it has. On nights like Lusail, though, he’s reminded just how far the summit can feel when you’re stuck measuring tyre life and wing angles rather than trophies. That he missed the winner isn’t a slight — it’s a snapshot of a long, lonely race.
The grid rolls on, and Qatar won’t be the last word on much. But Verstappen delivering under pressure, McLaren snapping at heels, and Hamilton calling for a better show? That feels like the story of the season in one neat package.
