5 moments you missed at the 2025 Qatar Grand Prix
Paddock padel, podium celebrations, and plenty of celebs – here are the 2025 Qatar Grand Prix off-track moments you might have missed.
The Qatar Grand Prix always provides plenty of drama as the penultimate race of the season, and 2025 was no different. The excitement was non-stop thanks to the final Sprint weekend and entertaining support races. After all the action on track, Qatar has set the stage perfectly for a Championship showdown in Abu Dhabi next weekend...
It was a racing spectacle on-track as Max Verstappen stormed to an unexpected victory, the McLaren pair were caught out after their strategy backfired, and Carlos Sainz and Williams secured their second podium of the season. But those weren’t the only stories from this epic Grand Prix weekend – so here are some magic moments you should know about.
Qatar is famously a race with intense conditions for the drivers, featuring high g-forces and even higher temperatures – so it’s no wonder that many of the paddock like to unwind between sessions.
It’s no secret that padel has been the go-to for many of the grid over the past few years, and lots of drivers headed to the courts before the action got underway on Friday. Ever the competitors, good friends Lando Norris and George Russell faced off against each other – we wonder which Brit got the win on the court...
As if padel wasn’t vigorous enough, Pierre Gasly and reserve driver Paul Aron also joined a number of the Alpine crew in a friendly (or so we think...) football match during the weekend. That’s one way to warm up ahead of the race – we'll be opting for an ice bath!
In securing their second podium of the season in Qatar, the celebrations in the Williams garage were nothing short of epic, while Sainz’s P3 saw him become the first Williams driver to score multiple podium finishes in a season since 2015. It also secured the Grove-based team a mighty fifth place in the Constructors’ Championship – a super impressive feat considering their P9 finish last season.
During the heartwarming team celebrations, Alex Albon sent champagne flying and Team Principal James Vowles even found himself unexpectedly tackled to the ground by Sainz’s cousin and manager Carlos Onoro. If his laughter was anything to go by, he didn’t seem to mind one bit – even if he may wake up with a souvenir bruise or two...!
And the feel-good podium moments just kept coming, as Red Bull also enjoyed an iconic podium return – only this one didn’t come from behind the wheel.
Stepping up alongside Verstappen, Hannah Schmitz received a hero’s welcome as the team celebrated another tactical masterclass from their star strategist. Her return to the podium served as a reminder of just how pivotal she remains to Red Bull’s winning machine.
Is there a better way to warm up for a gruelling race weekend than yoga with a 24-time Grand Slam tennis champion? Franco Colapinto had the pleasure of joining an on-grid Yoga session with Novak Djokovic during an Alpine sponsor event – although don’t expect to see this become a regular thing for the Argentinian.
It’s fair to say that Colapinto may have struggled with the Serbian’s stretches, admitting he “couldn’t even keep up with the warm-up” on Instagram.
In a moment we’re sure he’s been waiting for all week, Kimi Antonelli finally received the famous LEGO podium glasses from the Las Vegas Grand Prix. Antonelli’s eventual P3 was not confirmed until after the podium celebrations had concluded, as the McLaren duo were both disqualified for technical infringements during post-race checks.
Although thrilled to finish P3, Antonelli admitted he wished he could have been a part of the pre-podium celebrations in the LEGO Cadillac, so ahead of the Qatar Grand Prix weekend – a bit of the celebrations were brought to him. And with the sun out in Qatar, we’re sure he wore those sunnies all weekend long!
In an epic weekend on-track, the Lusail International Circuit was abuzz with celebrities wanting to catch a flash of the action as the Championship fight took another dramatic turn. F1 fan, and paddock regular, comedian Kevin Hart had the honour of waving the drivers across the line whilst on chequered flag duty on Sunday.
World-class sports stars know a thing or two about the excitement of battling for a championship – so it was unsurprising yet thrilling to see such a high turnout of superstar athletes in the paddock over race weekend. Along with tennis legends Djokovic and Serena Williams, we also saw former England players David Beckham, Rio Ferdinand, Steven Gerrard and Gary Neville, World Cup winner Sami Khedira, and former Olympic champions Mutaz Barshim and Mo Farah.
Elsewhere in the paddock, FIFA president Gianni Infantino, TV host Steve Harvey, models Alton Mason, Adriana Lima and Rosie Huntington-Whiteley, TV personality Maya Jama, and actress Jessica Alba were all spotted enjoying the race weekend.
It seemed only fitting that a race weekend as gripping as this was closed out with an epic set by rock legends Metallica, who also took time to soak in the action throughout the weekend. The group fuelled the excitement with nothing but pure motorsport ‘whiplash’ – visiting several garages and stopping by to meet with F1 President & CEO Stefano Domenicali.