QATAR GP – Oscar Piastri beats George Russell by three hundredths to take sprint pole
Oscar Piastri has beaten George Russell by three hundredths to take sprint pole for the Qatar Grand Prix. The Australian set a 20.055 to take his second pole in Lusail on his final lap as his McLaren teammate and championship leader Lando Norris, ran wide at the final corner, preventing him from taking pole.
Piastri has made the perfect start to the weekend as he looks to stop his teammates’ charge to the championship, but many expect with fifty-eight points remaining, Norris is likely to seal the championship if he outscores Piastri by twenty-six points. Piastri has, in recent races, lacked form, but his second sprint pole in three years in Lusail.
The Australian had looked to be a champion in waiting in Zandvoort, but the last three months have seen his teammate claw back points and a twenty-six-point lead. Piastri admitted his run of six successive grands prix without a podium have left him with what he described on Thursday as just an “outside shot” of catching his team-mate.
Norris’s mistake on his final attempt allowed Russell to split the McLarens, the Mercedes driver improved on his final attempt going ahead of the McLaren by two-tenths. Norris, admitting he didn’t get the most out of the car and was caught in traffic and dirty air behind Alex Albon on his final run and then ran wide at the corner. That allowed Russell to come through and go two tenths faster than Norris.
Norris will be champion if he wins Sunday’s Grand Prix and finishes eighth or higher in the sprint, or twenty-six points ahead of Piastri. But that could change if Piastri retires or doesn’t score. The Englishman would have had the championship all but sealed if it had not been for both McLarens being disqualified from the Las Vegas Grand Prix for excessive plank wear.
The Brit remains very much in control of his own destiny and was closely matched with Piastri throughout Friday before sloppiness cost him in the final part of qualifying. He should be able to bounce back in Grand Prix qualifying on Saturday. Norris was behind Piastri after their first runs as a result of an error at the final corner, and then, strangely allowed Alex Albon to pass him as they prepared for their second runs with the clock ticking down, which left him contending with the dirty air coming from the Williams.
Norris initially appeared to criticise his team for not leaving him enough time, but then accepted responsibility as his engineer Will Joseph questioned why he had let Albon past. Norris said, “The pace was there but I made a mistake in the last corner. I just didn’t put it together.”
On his prospects for the Sprint, he added: “I would be stupid not to try and win but it is impossible to overtake so I think I will probably finish P3. Getting past George Russell on the line is probably the best I can hope for.”
After reigniting his hopes on Friday, Piastri said: “It has been a good day, which is nice for a change. Things clicked from the start, so thanks to the team. It has looked good this weekend so far. There are a few things to tidy up, which is nice to say on pole. It’s only Sprint pole, but I will take whatever I can get. Sprint weekends are tough to know if you are fully on top of things, but it felt good all day and we made good adjustments before Qualifying. The pace was there all day.”
Piastri also didn’t get a perfect final attempt; a “pretty scary” oversteer moment as he entered Turn Four would have cost him two tenths. Meanwhile, for the other championship contender, Max Verstappen, an error on his first attempt cost him time, then he struggled on his second run, leaving him nine thousandths behind his teammate Yuki Tsunoda in sixth.
Verstappen was another to be caught out by the exit of Turn For on his first attempt, bouncing across the gravel trap violently, the sort of incident in which an F1 car’s floor can incur damage, although he did not mention it in his interview. His frustration had begun in practice, where Red Bull was suffering with proposing and at one stage, lost his cool over the radio when complaining about his car “bouncing like an idiot”.
Verstappen and Norris were cleared of several impeding incidents when fighting each other for track position in SQ1. Fernando Alonso put his Aston Martin fourth, going ahead of the Red Bull duo of Tsunoda who outqualified Verstappen for the first time as teammates. The Red Bull duo were four thousandths ahead of the second Mercedes of Kimi Antonelli.
He said, “Not good from the first lap. Just really bad bouncing and very aggressive understeer that would shift into oversteer at high speed. Just not what you want to go fast. We were locked in. We tried to change a few things on the wheel, but it never really worked, so it made it quite tricky. We changed a few things, but it wasn’t working well, so it’s something we need to understand.”
Antonelli made it into the final part of sprint qualifying after Isack Hadjar had his time deleted in SQ2 which had prompted him above the cut-off, after the Racing Bull driver ran wide. Carlos Sainz was eight hundredths ahead of former teammate Charles Leclerc, the Ferrari driver splitting the Williams as he went a tenth and a half ahead of Alex Albon. The top ten covered by seven and a half tenths.
Hadjar put his Racing Bull eleventh, the Frenchman missing out on SQ3 by just under six hundredths, after his fastest lap was deleted for track limits. That left him six hundredths ahead of Ollie Bearman, but the Frenchman wasn’t the only one to be caught off after Nico Hulkenberg also found his time deleted.
Bearman was unable to improve on his final run, leaving him twelfth. That left Hulkenberg fourteenth seven hundredths behind his Sauber teammate Gaberial Bortoletto, while Esteban Ocon was three and a half hundredths behind the Brazilian.
Lance Stroll was fastest of those knocked out in SQ1, the Aston Martin driver just over three hundredths behind Ocon, who finished SQ2 unable to improve from his position in SQ1, though he was just over a tenth faster.
Liam Lawson was seventeenth the Racing Bull around half a tenth behind Stroll. Lewis Hamilton’s nightmare of a season saw him eighteenth, nearly two-tenths behind Stroll. His final lap was messy and lacked pace. The seven-time champion was caught in traffic and moaned his Ferrari “couldn’t go any quicker,” but in SQ1 Leclerc was thirteenth, less than half a second between them.
The two Alpine’s completed the field, Pierre Gasly nineteenth as he went over a quarter of a second ahead of his teammate, Franco Colapinto.