Max Verstappen achieved his tenth pole position in this season’s Formula 1 World Championship by setting the fastest lap at the Qatar Grand Prix while both McLaren drivers got their times deleted after the session.
The qualifying session at the Losail circuit was dominated by track limits, plus the drivers struggling for rear grip around the high-speed circuit layout.
Verstappen posted a time of one minute, 23.778 seconds on his first run in Q3, which turned out to be the pole time as he lost the rear of his RB19 going through Turn 5 on his second Q3 run.
Lando Norris had already lost a lap time to track limits in Q1 and this occurred again on his first Q3 flaying lap, where like Verstappen he went too wide at Turn 5.
He initially got to within 0.3 seconds of Verstappen’s leading with his second Q3 attempt, but edging out too wide through Turn 10 proved to be costly for Norris and he was dropped back to P10.
Lando’s errors promoted Mercedes driver George Russell to second, ahead of Oscar Piastri and Lewis Hamilton, who had been second after the first Q3 runs but abandoned his second go after a wild oversteer moment at Turn 7 sent him off track.
But Piastri’s lap time was also deleted while he was interviewed post-session, moving Hamilton up to third on the grid. Piastri will start in sixth position.
Fernando Alonso took fifth for Aston Martin ahead of Charles Leclerc, who also abandoned his second Q3 flying lap after needing two attempts to set a time on the first runs in the final segment as he went off at Turn 4 – a spot of repeated issue for the Ferrari driver throughout qualifying.
Alpine’s Pierre Gasly and Esteban Ocon finished seventh and eighth, ahead of Alfa Romeo driver Valtteri Bottas and the demoted Norris.
In Q2, Yuki Tsunoda topped the list of those eliminated, with Carlos Sainz and Sergio Perez the high-profile early fallers ahead of Alex Albon and Haas driver Nico Hulkenberg.
Sainz could not gain time switching to new softs – abandoning his first lap after a moment at Turn 7 and getting involved in an incident with Verstappen where Sainz appeared to repeatedly cut in front of the Red Bull’s line as they prepared for their final Q2 efforts.
Perez was knocked out after losing his best time – one that only had him on the fringes of the Q2 top ten anyway – and was deleted for slipping beyond track limits at Turn 5 on his final effort.
In Q1, Albon’s last effort improvement knocked his Williams teammate Logan Sargeant out by just 0.092 seconds with Logan losing time in the high-speed corners in the track’s final sector.
Behind came Lance Stroll, Liam Lawson, Kevin Magnussen and Zhou Guanyu.
Hamilton, Tsunoda, Lawson and Piastri also face a post-qualifying investigation for possibly failing to follow the race director’s instructions regarding the maximum lap time aimed to reduce traffic issues in qualifying.
Qatar Grand Prix, qualifying positions:
1 Max Verstappen Red Bull 1:23.778
2 George Russell Mercedes 1:24.219
3 Lewis Hamilton Mercedes 1:24.305
4 Fernando Alonso Aston Martin 1:24.369
5 Charles Leclerc Ferrari 1:24.424
6 Oscar Piastri McLaren 1:24.540
7 Pierre Gasly Alpine 1:24.553
8 Esteban Ocon Alpine 1:24.763
9 Valtteri Bottas Alfa Romeo 1:25.058
10 Lando Norris McLaren No time
11 Yuki Tsunoda AlphaTauri 1:25.301
12 Carlos Sainz Ferrari 1:25.328
13 Sergio Perez Red Bull 1:25.462
14 Alexander Albon Williams 1:25.707
15 Nico Hulkenberg Haas 1:25.783
16 Logan Sargeant Williams 1:26.210
17 Lance Stroll Aston Martin 1:26.345
18 Liam Lawson AlphaTauri 1:26.635
19 Kevin Magnussen Haas 1:27.046
20 Zhou Guanyu Alfa Romeo 1:27.432
Qatar Grand Prix qualifying review as reported by Formula1.com.
Max Verstappen was in scintillating form on Friday, taking a dominant pole position for this weekend’s Qatar Grand Prix. The Dutch driver set a blistering lap to comfortably beat George Russell and Lewis Hamilton in an action-packed affair in Lusail.
Verstappen clocked a stunning time of 1m 23.778s on his first – and only – lap in Q3, to beat Russell, in second, by 0.441s, and Hamilton in third, by over half a second – although he aborted his final lap in Q3 after sliding in the first sector.
There was plenty of confusion following the session as both McLaren drivers had their times deleted for exceeding track limits. Once the penalties were applied, Oscar Piastri was dropped to sixth after initially being third, while Norris will line-up 10th, after losing his time that had put him second.
Fernando Alonso wound up fourth for Aston Martin ahead of Charles Leclerc in fifth for Ferrari. Ahead of Norris, but behind Piastri, on Sunday will be the Alpines of Pierre Gasly and Esteban Ocon, in seventh and eighth, with Valtteri Bottas in an impressive ninth for Alfa Romeo.
Yuki Tsunoda missed out on a place in Q3 by just 0.004s to Bottas, and will start Sunday’s race for AlphaTauri in 11th, with the Japanese racer set to line up on the grid alongside Carlos Sainz, who suffered a shock Q2 exit for Ferrari.
Sergio Perez, who had his fastest time deleted for exceeding track limits, will start in 13th for Red Bull – on a weekend where he could deny his team mate Verstappen the championship. Alex Albon wound up 14th for Williams after running wide on his final lap in Q2, with Nico Hulkenberg 15th for Haas.
Logan Sargeant narrowly missed out on a place in Q2 thanks to Albon, who knocked him out with his final lap in Q1. This leaves the Williams rookie in 16th for Sunday’s race, ahead of the visibly frustrated Lance Stroll in 17th.
Liam Lawson was 18th fastest for AlphaTauri, and he was joined in the bottom three by the Haas of Kevin Magnussen, with Zhou Guanyu set to start at the back of the field for Alfa Romeo.
https://www.formula1.com/en/latest/article.verstappen-dominates-to-take-pole-position-ahead-of-mercedes-as-he-closes-in.5O7X6vNyHTTs2k9KgBMum0.html
McLaren’s Lando Norris has said making mistakes was “all I did today” after losing a front row start for Formula 1’s Qatar Grand Prix due to exceeding track limits.
Norris went second in Q3 in Losail for McLaren, which proved to be the second-fastest car through the high-speed corners behind Red Bull’s dominant polesitter Max Verstappen.
But the Briton immediately realised he wouldn’t start there as he had caught a slide into the Turn 10 left-hander that spat him out wide past the white line, which saw his lap time deleted.
Norris also lost his first, almost identical, Q3 time and therefore dropped all the way down to 10th on the grid for Sunday’s grand prix.
Afterwards, he fully owned up for his messy qualifying session, and when asked by Sky Sports F1 if his car’s pace still left him encouraged for the remainder of the weekend, he replied:
“I don’t think like that. I just think of the job I’m meant to do today, which is put in good laps, don’t make mistakes. And that’s all I did today, so not a good day for me.
“The team has done a good job; I just messed it up. I just had a correction on oversteer and went off.”
https://www.motorsport.com/f1/news/norris-making-mistakes-all-i-did-in-f1-qatar-gp-qualifying/10529617/
The Sprint weekend format usually throws up some surprises – and Ferrari driver Carlos Sainz found himself one of its victims, after a shock Q2 exit for the Spaniard in Friday night qualifying.
Sainz had shown impressive pace in the weekend’s only practice session on Friday afternoon, taking P2 behind eventual pole-sitter Max Verstappen.
But once the floodlights came on for Friday evening’s qualifying, the Ferraris appeared to struggle, with Sainz exiting in Q2 and set to start Sunday’s Qatar Grand Prix in P12, behind the AlphaTauri of Yuki Tsunoda.
“I had a very difficult quali, right from the beginning,” said Sainz after qualifying. “Just struggling with the balance. The rear was very, very loose, while in FP1, I managed to switch on the tyres and get decent grip on this new surface.
“When the track [temperature] dropped this afternoon, I just couldn’t find any grip out there, so I just struggled quite heavily, so I’m not surprised to be out in Q2.
“Hopefully we can turn it around for tomorrow, the Sprint, and have a better Saturday,” added Sainz. “But definitely Sunday’s going to be tricky, starting from so far back in a difficult track to overtake. But my main focus now is to try and see what we can do better tomorrow.”
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There were mixed feelings at Mercedes on Friday night as, while George Russell was “pretty happy” to qualify second, Lewis Hamilton labelled his qualifying outing “average”, despite being set to line up in third place on Sunday.
After completing a lap of 1m 24.219s around the Lusail circuit, Russell had initially qualified third, but gained a place after Lando Norris, in second, had his time deleted for exceeding track limits on his final attempt in Q3.
While Russell was pleased with the result, and to have his team mate lining up next to him on Sunday, he jokingly admitted that due to the sandy nature of the track, he would much prefer to swap positions with Hamilton.
“Just very pleased with how the session went, regardless,” said Russell, when asked if he was surprised to be on the front row. “I was pretty happy with P3 to be honest because this track is so sandy off the racing line.
“There’s not much grip so I think that P3 spot would have actually been a better position for the race. Nevertheless, we’ve got Lewis alongside me now, and we can be strategic, [and] work together.
“We’ve got our sights set on a strong result now that the McLarens are behind us. We are going to have a bit of a fight on our hands because they are really quick, but we’ve got two sleeps before we can think about that.”
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