Norris third as title rival Piastri takes Qatar sprint pole

Lando Norris could only finish third in the Qatar Grand Prix’ sprint race, where the McLaren driver could for the first time win the world title over the weekend.

Oscar Piastri, Norris’ teammate in the championship, came second, followed by George Russell of Mercedes, who was his other rival.

Max Verstappen of Red Bull, who is 24 points behind Norris in the title race, will finish sixth in the sprint.

Piastri qualified for the sprint smoothly, flying both times.

By contrast, Norris suffered a knock during the second session, but despite that, he was only a few hundredths away from Piastri on his first lap in the final session.

After running behind Williams’ Alex Albon, he was already off the pace before running wide out of the final corner. He then had an off-track moment out of the final corner, where Russell pipped him.

It’s been a good day, which is nice for a change, according to Piastri, who has watched Norris score 50 points for him since he won the Dutch Grand Prix at the end of August.

The car has been feeling good all day. We made some good adjustments to the qualifying process. The pace continued throughout the day.

The pace was present, Norris said. I simply made a mistake during my first lap’s final corner, failing to put it together.

“It would be foolish of me not to attempt to win the sprint race.” See what I can overnight.

I believe I will probably finish P3, but I’m probably going to have to do it if I can at least get George off the line. “It’s impossible to overtake,” I think.

Piastri’s pole was presented despite a significant oversteer on Turn Four, which he claimed had cost him about 0.22 seconds and which he claimed was “pretty scary-turning left in a right-hand corner is never good, especially when you’re doing it how many hundreds of kilometers an hour you’re doing there.”

Verstappen’s issues were exacerbated by Yuki Tsunoda’s defeat in their first qualifying game of the year, which the Dutchman won by 0.009secs.

Verstappen continued to rant about the car’s bounce throughout the entire session over the radio, adding swear words.

He was also in the lead during the first session, and he was only 0.01 seconds ahead of the McLaren drivers. However, he lost control of his car after an off at Turn Four during the final session, compromising the performance of his car.

Since the 2024 Azerbaijan Grand Prix, it was the first time a teammate had outqualified him.

Verstappen once said, “Not good. From the first lap, there was nothing but terrible bouncing and a lot of aggressive understeer that would quickly turn into oversteer. Simply put, you don’t want it. We attempted to alter the steering wheel, but it was unsuccessful.

“The sprint won’t be very enjoyable with this balance,” the coach said. More important will be to attempt to survive before making any adjustments before qualifying.

Although the title fight was distracting, Fernando Alonso, who placed the Aston Martin fourth on the grid, was arguably the star of sprint qualifying. This was an outstanding performance for a team that is currently eighth in the constructors’ championship.

He declared it to be “one of the best results of the year.” The car appeared to be out of the window at first practice, with the exception of the steep circuit and high-speed sections. Traffic caused a little stress in Q2, but we made it through to Q3, and we put a lap together after that.

It has some drawbacks compared to 44 years of “experience” of 24 years. With jet lag, I become a little tired.

However, on Fridays and Saturdays, when we open the parc ferme and make some minor modifications to the cars, everyone seems to be on top of the circuit, I know the tracks, the tires, and how to extract everything.

Carlos Sainz and Alex Albon sandwiched Leclerc behind him, and Mercedes’ Kimi Antonelli was seventh.

In his only subsequent media appearance after the session, Hamilton said almost nothing.