LUSAIL, Qatar – Max Verstappen seems to be at his best when he has something to prove. Even a driver who is always in a league of his own can reach new levels of ruthless efficiency in the moments when he’s really hot, and Sunday’s Qatar Grand Prix weekend was a prime example of this.

The trigger came on Saturday evening when the stewards deprived him of his first pole position in eleven Grand Prix races with a dubious one-place penalty. The end result was a race win regardless of the penalty and a victory that had previously seemed almost impossible on the same weekend.

“Karma is a wonderful thing,” said Verstappen’s race engineer Gianpiero Lambiase over the team radio as the victorious Red Bull crossed the finish line. Even after winning the title last weekend in Las Vegas, that win – the 63rd of his career – still counted for a lot.

Rewind 24 hours and Verstappen was driving down the same pit straight thinking he had secured pole position – his first for a Grand Prix since the Austrian Grand Prix in June. It was also a particularly hard-fought pole position, where he beat George Russell’s Mercedes by 0.055 seconds, despite struggling with the handling of his Red Bull throughout sprint qualifying and the sprint race earlier in the weekend .

“Aggressive” setup changes before Grand Prix qualifying had helped correct the handling imbalance that Verstappen had felt in the sprint sessions, and suddenly his Red Bull felt “connected” for the first time in a long time.

“It couldn’t have been worse (in the sprint). So we just looked at it and it’s not all clear, but we say, ‘Well, we need to try this (setup) direction.'” he explained. “We put it on the car and it worked .Yes, a miracle happened!”

“When you fight against a Haas in the sprint and fight for victory in the main race, that’s a pretty big leap in performance!”

It was hard to digest that all of this hard work was lost due to a sports commissioner’s decision, especially a decision that is largely unprecedented.

While preparing for a qualifying round, drivers are regularly investigated by the stewards for slow driving. However, extenuating circumstances such as traffic or overtaking a car mean they are almost always released. In Verstappen’s case in Qatar, he had slowed down to let Fernando Alonso and Lando Norris pass when Russell, also on a preparation lap, filled his mirrors in the middle of Turn 12.

The stewards not only found that Verstappen had exceeded the delta time, which is used to measure whether drivers take too long on a preparation lap, and was therefore “driving unnecessarily slowly,” but also created a dangerous situation with Russell. Hence the one place penalty when other drivers have been sent off in the past.

Unsurprisingly, Verstappen disagreed with the assessment, but it was the way Russell argued for the penalty in the stewards’ office on Saturday evening that really upset him.

“I think it’s ridiculous how we want to make sure I get a penalty,” he said on Dutch television on Sunday evening. “Do you know what it is? He behaves well in front of the camera here, but when you talk to him in person he is a different person.”

“I can’t stand this. In that case you’d better run away,” said Verstappen.

Now with his fourth consecutive championship under his belt, it appears that Verstappen’s filter, which was always loosely attached, has now been completely removed.

“I couldn’t believe I got the penalty,” he said later in the FIA ​​press conference. “But in a way I also thought: Yes, I’m no longer surprised in the world I live in. I didn’t want to screw anyone into preparing their womb and thereby essentially being nice.” You get a punishment. And I tried to explain that, but I just felt like I was talking to a wall.

Feeling like he wasn’t being listened to, Verstappen decided to talk on track on race day.

As he lined up on the grid, he positioned his Red Bull to block Russell’s path to Turn 1, and after pulling away perfectly, he took the inside line and shooed the Mercedes towards the edge of the track at corner exit. The move almost opened the door for Norris to exploit an advantage and gain positions over Russell and Verstappen, but again his perfect positioning of his Red Bull ensured Verstappen came out on top.

With Russell having problems at the time, Verstappen’s race from that point on was almost entirely with Norris, and he struggled to shake off the McLaren most of the time. His performance may have seemed composed from the outside, but Verstappen planned the lap carefully, knowing that Norris had an advantage on pit road that could lead to an overtaking opportunity at Turn 1.

“For most of the first stint I felt pretty good in the first two sectors, but in the last sector I think Lando started to push a little more early on in the race and I probably did a little more.” he said. “But of course at some point he tried to close the gap and I had to push even harder in the last sector.

“But I think he was still very fast even in the last corner, which was a little weakness for us even in qualifying. So, yeah, it evened out over the course of the round, almost every single round. So.” Yes, I enjoyed it. It’s just about making sure you don’t make any mistakes.

Even more “karma”, at least from Red Bull’s perspective, came for Verstappen when Norris was investigated for not slowing down under a yellow flag. The incident occurred after Alex Albon’s Williams dropped one of his wing mirrors on pit road and double-waved yellow flags were displayed, presumably because a marshal was preparing to run onto the track to retrieve him.

Verstappen noticed the double yellows and backed away, but noticed that Norris continued with full throttle and the DRS overtaking aid wide open. He was quickly reached on the team radio to tell his friends in the stewards’ office that Norris had broken one of Formula 1’s most important safety rules.

“I mean, I knew I lifted the ball because I saw the double yellow. And of course I know that if I hadn’t lifted the ball the matter would have been investigated immediately,” he said. “So it’s just your turn. I mean, yeah, I asked if he was lifting because I think he also had a DRS from a backmarker at the same time.”

“And then of course when we came out of Turn 1 I saw that he was a lot closer. So I just asked the team to check it out. I mean, it was just a normal question. And of course I know.” “They’re pretty strict about double yellow.”

It took several laps for the stewards to investigate the incident, but when they did, Norris was turned upside down. A 10-second drive-through penalty was imposed, which, other than a disqualification, is the strictest penalty allowed by the F1 regulations.

From that point on, victory was undisputedly Verstappen’s. A bad win in some respects, but one that Verstappen will undoubtedly be proud of.

“It was nice,” he said. “I mean, the behavior of the car is still not where I would have liked compared to last year, but at least we are back in the fight for victory now.

“So if we can learn from this year’s car, and of course use the positive aspects of last year and try to build a better car, I’m sure we can be very competitive again next year.”