QATAR GP – Oscar Piastri takes a five-second victory ahead of George Russell in the sprint
Oscar Piastri took a nearly five-second victory to win the sprint race and narrow the lead of his McLaren teammate Lando Norris at the Qatar Grand Prix. The Australian converted pole into the lead off the line as he fended off the Mercedes of George Russell and built a second’s lead on the opening lap, which gave him control of the race.
Piastri’s second sprint win in Lusail allows him to slightly reduce Norris’s lead with fifty points remaining over the next eight days but the Englishman remains the favourite for the championship. Norris has a twenty-two-point lead and will win the championship if he scores four points in the Grand Prix.
The smoother track layout and high-speed corners have suited Piastri’s driving style, and he controlled the Sprint to score his first win of any kind since the Dutch Grand Prix three months ago. He never appeared under threat from Russell after securing the lead at the first corner, but the lack of overtaking could be a problem in the Grand Prix, especially given the concerns about tyres and maximum stint lengths.
Max Verstappen, who started the race tied on points with Piastri, finished fourth dropping three points after he made a brilliant start. He was let passed by his teammate Yuki Tsunoda and then the Aston Martin of Fernando Alonso. Verstappen then started to try and chase the McLaren’s but the RB21 did not look comfortable as the issues that plagued him during sprint qualifying.
The top four finished the sprint race exactly how the started, but a tiny error during the race saw Norris lose momentum out of the final corner, where he kicked up a bit of dust. This made him vulnerable to Verstappen, who remained within a second, and was unable to use DRS to try and get pass the McLaren.
Piastri said, “It’s been a good weekend so far. Everything went smoothly in the Sprint there, so I’m happy with how it’s been so far and just need to keep it rolling.”
Norris said: “I never saw him (Max) actually, I just saw George ahead. I tried to go forwards. We got pretty close at the start, but it was good. I didn’t see what happened behind. Long stint, it felt like a lot of pushing, so it’s going to be a tough race tomorrow.”
While Verstappen, early on was able to challenge and even try an overtake on Norris, those problems meant he was then forced to drop back. the dirty air ensured that cars would all fall away from each other, and the lack of pit stops ensured they were nearly guaranteed to finish in the positions they held on lap one.
However, while fifth is Tsunoda’s best result of the season, he was despite a five second penalty for track limits, which was also given to Kimi Antonelli, who finished two seconds behind the Red Bull.
Fernando Alonso finished three seconds behind the Mercedes and two and three-quarters seconds ahead of his fellow Spaniard Carlos Sainz as they completed the points. Alonso had looked to be the expectation, he had lost a place to Antonelli at the final corner on lap twelve, which gave the Mercedes a slip stream into the first corner and passed the two-time champion.
Isack Hadjar split the two Williams; the Racing Bull driver was eighth and three-quarters second ahead Alex Albon as they completed the top ten. Gabriel Bortoleto was eleventh, he missed out on the top ten by four seconds and was ahead of Charles Leclerc by a second and seven-tenths.
It was a nightmare start to Ferrari’s Saturday night in Lusail, Leclerc had started the sprint just outside the points before dropping back four places, while his Ferrari teammate Lewis Hamilton could only manage seventeenth after a pit-lane start. The seven-time champion bemoaned “I don’t know how we made the car worse.”
Liam Lawson was nearly two seconds behind Leclerc, as the second Racing Bull also nearly two seconds ahead of Esteban Ocon, while Nico Hulkenberg finished sixteenth. Hamilton was the lead car of the pit-lane starters twenty-three seconds ahead of Pierre Gasly, Lance Stroll split the Alpine’s finishing nearly eight and half seconds behind Gasly and just under three seconds ahead of Franco Colapinto.
Related
- Qatar GP – Sprint Qualifying Result
- QATAR GP – Oscar Piastri beats George Russell by three hundredths to take sprint pole
- QATAR GP – Oscar Piastri leads a McLaren one-two in practice, going just under six hundredths faster than Lando Norris.
- Welcome to the Qatar Grand Prix – 27/11/2025
- PRIXVIEW – Qatar Grand Prix