Verstappen wins Qatar GP, Ferrari closes constructors gap on McLaren

Red Bull's Max Verstappen overcame a one-place grid penalty to win the Qatar Grand Prix at the Lusail International Circuit on Sunday for his ninth victory of the season.

Ferrari's Charles Leclerc finished second to help his team close ground in the constructors' championship standings on McLaren, which had Oscar Piastri finish third.

Piastri's teammate Lando Norris held second place for the majority of the race before being hit with a 10-second penalty for failing to slow under yellow warning flags. He finished 10th, four places behind Ferrari's Carlos Sainz.

"It was a lot of fun out there," Verstappen said, according to The Associated Press' James Ellingworth. "Very happy. It's been a while in the dry to be this competitive. Very proud of everyone within the team."

With his win in Brazil on Nov. 3 and now the win in Qatar, Verstappen has won two of his last three races. The Dutchman had previously gone winless since June after winning seven of the season's first 10 contests.

McLaren entered Sunday needing to outscore Ferrari by 15 points to secure its first constructors' championship since 1998, which will now be decided during next weekend's season finale.

"We knew it was going to be a very difficult weekend compared to the McLaren, but we even managed to take some points away from them, so the fight will be all the way to the last race in Abu Dhabi next week," Leclerc said.

Mercedes' George Russell finished fourth after starting in pole position as the beneficiary of Verstappen's grid penalty.

Verstappen, who received the penalty in qualifying for driving unnecessarily slowly, didn't speak kindly of Russell after the race.

"Honestly, very disappointing because I think we're all here, we respect each other a lot, and, of course, I've been in that (race stewards') meeting room many times in my life, in my career, with people that have raced, and I've never seen someone trying to screw someone over that hard," Verstappen said, according to James Ellingworth of The Associated Press. "For me, I lost all respect."

Alpine's Pierre Gasly finished fifth ahead of Sainz and Aston Martin's Fernando Alonso. Sauber's Zhou Guanyu won the team's first points of the season with an eighth-place finish.

The Abu Dhabi Grand Prix is set for Dec. 8 at 8 a.m. ET.