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The surprise was not that Max Verstappen is the Formula One world champion for a third consecutive season. If not in the sprint race at Losail International Circuit, in Qatar, on Saturday, the Flying Dutchman would have clinched the crown in Sunday's Qatar Grand Prix. The eye-opening moment is in how it came, finishing second to McLaren's rookie driver Oscar Piastri, this coming after Piastri's teammate Lando Norris had qualified second to lockout the front row for the start of the sprint.

Staying with Verstappen, and giving him his due, the result put him mathematically beyond the reach of his Red Bull Racing teammate, Sergio Perez, a foregone conclusion when the Mexican retired from the 19-lap event. It puts Verstappen in an exclusive club of F1 drivers with three titles that includes Jack Brabham, Jackie Stewart, Niki Lauda, Nelson Piquet, and just one title off four-time champions Alain Prost and Sebastian Vettel.

But the big winners here are McLaren. Piastri started the season the season last at Bahrain, and Norris wasn't much farther up the grid in 17th. The next race, at Saudi Arabia, saw a slight improvement from Piastri as he finished 15th with Norris 17th again. But by Australia the team was showing life with both drivers finishing in the points (Norris sixth and Piastri eighth).

Austria saw Norris finish just off the podium in fourth, with Piastri having a spot of trouble and finishing 16th. But that was followed with a big breakthrough at the British Grand Prix, where Norris finished second to Verstappen while Piastri just missed the final step on the podium by finishing fourth. 

That brings us to Saturday. Yes, it was only over 19 laps, but it is clear McLaren has found the map out of the wilderness and to the land of contenders. Beating Verstappen to the pole and finishing 1 and 3 to the Red Bull driver is a clear message to the rest of the field that it can be done, but that it takes time and patience. Ferrari, Mercedes and Aston Martin will find some hope in that, but also be aware that there is another plate at the table. The temptation for those teams will be to start focusing on 2024, and there will certainly be a lot of that going on, but there is still a nice monetary reward for finishing second rather than third and so on in the manufacturers' standings.

So let Sunday come and let Verstappen dominate once again. Losail is a medium- to high-speed corner track with a 1-km straight, in other words, the kind of track the Red Bull's Honda-powered RB19 eats up with ice cream. But perhaps there will be something filling Verstappen's mirrors this time around: the papaya orange cars of McLaren.