Lando Norris used his experience to gift Oscar Piastri victory in the Qatar Sprint and protect the McLaren one-two.
George Russell started the short race second, between the McLarens, but soon lost the place to Piastri as the Papaya cars flexed their muscles. And leader Norris was clever in his approach, not pulling away from the Australian so that his team-mate could keep DRS to help him defend against the Mercedes.
So even though Russell had plenty of pace, he had to settle for third place while McLaren strengthened their grip on top spot in the constructors' championship. Closest rival Ferrari had qualified disappointingly and didn't make any progress in the Sprint, Carlos Sainz finishing fourth one place ahead of Charles Leclerc.
Their race was still better than Red Bull's, though. Max Verstappen lost ground as he suffered significant oversteer in the early laps and could only manage eighth to score one single point. And Sergio Perez, who had started from the pit lane, finished second from last.
The Mexican had already embarrassed himself by qualifying down in 16th. After Red Bull opted to make set-up changes despite triggering a pit lane start, it wasn't enough for him to make any progress.
And Perez made himself look silly when caught napping at the beginning of the race. When the light went green at the end of the pit lane, he did not put his foot down and, by the time he reacted, he was promptly overtaken by Franco Colapinto, who had also started from the pits in his Williams.
At the front, Norris had the pace to zoom off into the distance if he wanted. But he played the smart game at the request of his McLaren team, making sure Piastri could remain within one second so he could keep his rear wing open and get the extra speed on the straights he needed to keep Russell at bay.
The Brit tried several times to lunge past his Australian rival, but to no avail. On two occasions, he angrily swore over the radio claiming that Piastri had illegally shut the door on him, but race control was not interested as the McLaren man had track position and therefore every right to allow no room for the Mercedes behind.
Norris rounded the final corner and looked set to complete a comfortable lights-to-flag victory. But he suddenly slowed down to let Piastri take the chequered flag instead, returning the favour after the Aussie had gifted him a Sprint win in Brazil earlier this month to assist his drivers' title bid.
Now that Norris can no longer mathematically stop Verstappen, he decided to return the favour. The Brit confirmed afterwards that it was always the plan and said: "It was probably closer than I wanted, but I planned to do it since Brazil. I just did what I thought was best - it was probably a little bit sketchy and the team told me not to do it, but I thought we could get away with it and we did."
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