Formula 1’s final fortnight of the season sees the circus head back to the Middle East. While the Drivers’ title is now done and dusted with Max Verstappen crowned for a fourth consecutive year, for the three teams still in with a chance of claiming the Constructors’ title, McLaren leading Ferrari and Red Bull, there is still everything to play for with 103 points on the table.

The last back-to-back of this the longest ever Formula 1 season, gets underway in Qatar, the sixth Grand Prix weekend to be run to the Sprint format this year. 13,000 kilometres as the crow flies and an eleven hour time difference separate Doha from Las Vegas. They are both night races, held on the edge of large deserts, but that’s where the similarities end. In Nevada, drivers had to deal with a street circuit featuring medium to low speed corners with air and track temperatures only just above the 10 °C mark. In Qatar on the other hand, the Grand Prix is held on a permanent circuit with medium-high speed corners and ambient temperatures around the 25 °C mark.

When it comes to the tyres to be used, only the C3 is carried over from Vegas. In fact, at the Lusail track, the tyres are subjected to energy levels comparable to those at Suzuka and Silverstone and so the hardest trio of compounds in the 2024 range will be used, with the aforementioned C3 as Soft, the C2 as Medium and the C1 as Hard.

This is the third edition of the Qatar Grand Prix, the two previous events having been held in 2021 and 2023. Last year the weekend was affected by a decision taken by the FIA, imposing a maximum of 18 on the number of laps that one set of tyres could complete in the race, which led to all the drivers making three pit stops. The Race Director’s decision was deemed necessary after a notification from the Pirelli engineers. Following the usual analysis of the tyres returned to them by the teams after the first and second day of track activity, they pointed out the possibility of micro-lacerations in the sidewalls between the tread compound and the carcass cords, caused by impact generated from repeatedly driving over the kerbs at some corners.

Over the past few months, the FIA and Pirelli have worked together to prepare for this Grand Prix to ensure that what happened in 2023 will not be repeated. The pyramid-shaped kerbs have had their tips rounded off at seven of the track’s 16 corners: the first two after the start, turns 4 and 10 and the three from 12 to 14, the section that had most stressed the sides of the tyres. Engineers in the Pirelli Motorsport R&D department have carried out extensive and lengthy tests on the dynamic test beds in Milan, using a sample of the new kerbs supplied by the FIA. Furthermore, the engineers also analysed tyres from tests carried out by some Formula 1 teams in recent weeks at the Lusail circuit, running pre-2024 cars. Even though the tyres were obviously not identical to those from the 2024 range, the acquired data has still been useful to confirm the results of simulations and the indications from the test bed. It should also be noted that the FIA has ensured that a gravel strip is added to the outside of some kerbs to dissuade drivers from overstepping the mark in order to go quicker.

Another feature of last year’s race was the very high humidity level on Sunday which, combined with the rather high temperatures of a Qatari October, made life very physically demanding for the drivers, so much so that some of them felt ill because of the heat in the cockpit and one driver even had to retire from the race. This year the situation should be better in this respect as the race is taking place over one month later. However, the conditions last year led to a recent decision from the FIA World Council to authorise the use of a standardised cooling system in the cockpit at the hottest Grands Prix, as from next year.

However, it’s hard to avoid the high temperatures emanating from the Lusail track which was resurfaced in time for last year’s Grand Prix, to the extent that graining could be a feature, as it was in Las Vegas, albeit for opposite reasons: in Nevada it was caused by the cold and the lack of grip leading to the tyres sliding on the asphalt, causing abrasion of the tyre surface. This could have a significant impact on race strategy with the tyres possibly suffering from significant thermal degradation. Furthermore, there are so few precedents to these conditions that for now it is impossible to make predictions. Leaving aside the events of 2023, it should be remembered that, in 2021, some drivers only made one pit stop and others, like Hamilton and Verstappen who finished first and second, fought for the win running a two-stop strategy. While keeping in mind that 2021 featured cars from the previous generation, therefore with very different tyre compounds, there were many different choices made in terms of compounds used, as indeed was the case in last year’s Sprint when 12 drivers started on the Medium and eight on the Soft.

In the two editions of this event to date, the spoils of victory and pole positions have been shared equally between Hamilton and Verstappen, the only ways to split them being that the Dutchman has the advantage, having recorded the race fastest lap on both occasions, as well as finishing second in 2021. The other podium finishers are Alonso, who was third for Alpine in 2021, and Piastri and Norris, respectively second and third last year.

The Qatar Grand Prix weekend is also the penultimate round of two series that usually run in conjunction with Formula 1, namely Formula 2 and the F1 Academy, both having Pirelli as their sole tyre supplier.