Lando Norris will start the Qatar Grand Prix sprint in pole position, edging ahead of last weekend’s Las Vegas race winner George Russell.
The McLaren driver set a lap time of one minute, 21.012 seconds on his first attempt on soft tyres, doing so without the preparation lap that other drivers attempted to use.
Norris then touched the gravel on his second run at Turn 2, which prompted an early return to the pits having already secured pole. A challenge from Oscar Piastri came with a purple first sector on his second attempt, but with time lost over the rest of the lap.
As Piastri could not improve, Russell took advantage and moved up to second position – just 0.063 seconds shy of Norris at the chequered flag.
Carlos Sainz joined Piastri on the second row for the sprint race with his sole lap emerging at the end of the session – the Ferrari driver had to back out of an earlier attempt at a lap, which forced him into taking three preparation laps before his final run.
This moved him ahead of teammate Charles Leclerc, while championship winner Max Verstappen was sixth – having also been unable to improve on his final lap.
Lewis Hamilton was seventh fastest, with half-a-second’s gap to eighth-placed Pierre Gasly. Nico Hulkenberg was ninth ahead of Liam Lawson, as the RB driver had a better lap deleted for track limits.
Fernando Alonso lost his place in SQ3 after Gasly’s late lap in the intermediate stage, as the Alpine driver found just under a tenth on the Aston Martin driver to take his chance in the top ten shootout.
Alex Albon was also displaced from the top ten among the final runs after a twitch at Turn 15 appeared to cost a bit of time on his last lap.
The Williams driver was 0.012 seconds clear of Sauber’s Valtteri Bottas, who could not deliver on the time he had made up in the opening two sectors and fell short at the final moment. Lance Stroll and Kevin Magnussen were also eliminated in Q2.
Sergio Perez was knocked out during the opening stage, having fallen short of Albon by 0.013 seconds. He maintained a 0.004 seconds advantage over Yuki Tsunoda, who could not find enough time in the final sector to progress.
Esteban Ocon dropped into the bottom five at the end of the session as a group of drivers behind him on the timing screens found improvement – Alonso, Stroll, and Hulkenberg broke out of the relegation zone with their last runs to leave Ocon out of luck.
Zhou Guanyu and Franco Colapinto propped up the order, having been in the bottom five ahead of the final runs – neither could improve sufficiently to change that.
Qatar Grand Prix, sprint qualifying:
1 Lando Norris McLaren 1:21.012
2 George Russell Mercedes 1:21.075
3 Oscar Piastri McLaren 1:21.171
4 Carlos Sainz Ferrari 1:21.281
5 Charles Leclerc Ferrari 1:21.308
6 Max Verstappen Red Bull 1:21.315
7 Lewis Hamilton Mercedes 1:21.474
8 Pierre Gasly Alpine 1:21.978
9 Nico Hulkenberg Haas 1:22.088
10 Liam Lawson RB 1:22.577
11 Fernando Alonso Aston Martin 1:22.433
12 Alexander Albon Williams 1:22.526
13 Valtteri Bottas Sauber 1:22.538
14 Lance Stroll Aston Martin 1:22.599
15 Kevin Magnussen Haas 1:22.738
16 Sergio Perez Red Bull 1:22.718
17 Yuki Tsunoda RB 1:22.722
18 Esteban Ocon Alpine 1:22.906
19 Zhou Guanyu Sauber 1:22.948
20 Franco Colapinto Williams 1:23.423
Lando Norris has surged to pole position for the Sprint at the Qatar Grand Prix, with the Briton topping every segment of a busy Sprint Qualifying session, while George Russell disrupted what looked to be a McLaren front row lockout by going second quickest.
Having set the pace in SQ1 and SQ2, Norris was quick to repeat the feat in SQ3 with an eye-catching effort of 1m 21.012s – and as the pack tried to better their times, that benchmark was ultimately undefeated.
Oscar Piastri seemed on course to start alongside his team mate in P2, before Russell slotted in-between them with a lap 0.063s behind Norris’s. This pushed Piastri down to third, while Carlos Sainz took fourth for Ferrari after leaving it late to put a representative time on the board.
Fellow Scuderia driver Charles Leclerc followed in fifth, while world champion Max Verstappen was sixth for Red Bull ahead of Mercedes’ Lewis Hamilton in seventh. Pierre Gasly had another good qualifying for Alpine in eighth, and the Haas of Nico Hulkenberg and RB’s Liam Lawson rounded out the top 10.
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Lando Norris expressed his satisfaction after charging to pole position for the Sprint at the Qatar Grand Prix, a few days on from rival Max Verstappen sealing the world title.
Norris mathematically fell out of championship contention at the Las Vegas Strip Circuit after finishing behind Verstappen, having emerged as the Dutchman’s main challenger this season.
But the McLaren driver came back with a bang in Lusail by topping Friday night’s Sprint Qualifying session over the Mercedes of George Russell and team mate Oscar Piastri.
Speaking about his decisive SQ3 lap afterwards, he said: “It’s tough because it’s so quick around here. It feels like the quickest circuit of the year. The final sector – you’re just hanging on, you know.
“It’s a great qualifying today, especially to bounce back from where we were last time out in Vegas, it’s a nice thing to do – so [I’m] happy.
“It was a decent lap, I made too many mistakes on my second, but we were coming here to get pole and we did that so job done for today.”
https://www.formula1.com/en/latest/article/norris-hails-job-done-with-sprint-pole-in-qatar-as-he-bounces-back-from-las.7baB1gBlRO9VBSjOzK5Znr
Charles Leclerc says Ferrari’s low-key performance in Qatar sprint qualifying was a “coming back to reality” moment after securing fourth and fifth on Saturday’s Formula 1 grid.
The Monegasque had headlined free practice with a considerable margin over Lando Norris and Oscar Piastri, beating the McLarens by almost 0.5 seconds, but fell behind them and George Russell in qualifying.
He was also outqualified by team-mate Carlos Sainz, who clinched fourth in the dying stages of SQ3.
Leclerc believes that this was more representative of Ferrari’s real pace, although said that he was disappointed not to capitalise on the hopes raised by an impressive practice session.
“It’s not good because when you give it all and we are only P4 and P5, it’s not great considering how important this weekend is for us,” said Leclerc.
“But let’s say that for whatever reason FP1 was a lot above our expectations. This [sprint qualifying] I’ll say is in line with what we expected, so we’re coming back to reality.
“Obviously after FP1 there were hopes that we could do something better, but we didn’t.
“If we look at FP1 clearly yes [the sprint win is possible], if we look at qualifying no. For now the most representative is quali so we are not in the best position. But we never know, it’s always different coming race day.”
https://www.motorsport.com/f1/news/leclerc-ferrari-back-to-reality-in-qatar-gp-sprint-quali-after-topping-fp1/10677692/
George Russell has revealed how a last-gasp effort to take Losail’s daunting Turn 14 flat out in sprint qualifying “confused” his engine and actually cost him time.
The Mercedes driver was the closest challenger to pole position man Lando Norris in the closing segment of SQ3, with almost nothing separating him and his McLaren rival.
And to try to find the tiny margin of time that could make the difference in the end, Russell elected not to lift as he had done before through the long final sequence of high-speed right-handed swoops near the end of the lap.
However, while that helped him carry a bit more speed through the turn, it bizarrely triggered a freak set of circumstances because it meant the extra energy deployment that should have helped power him along the next straight was not activated.
That was because, with the way the system is set up, by taking the corner without a lift, the Mercedes electronics did not detect that he had gone through the turn – so did not know it had to unleash the extra hybrid power as it thought he was still on the previous straight.
It meant that rather than receiving a speed boost, the hybrid stayed in recharge mode – leaving him around 5km/h slower than he had been on his previous best effort.
Speaking about what happened, Russell said: “I went flat through the high speed for the first time on my final lap in Q3 and confused the engine a little bit.
“I don’t know how much I lost, but I had a big recharge on the exit of the corner because I went through it flat.
“It’s way too technical for this interview, but that was a bit annoying when I just nailed it and then I lost a load of speed on the exit. But I think Lando was just a smidge out of reach.”
https://www.motorsport.com/f1/news/how-russell-confused-his-engine-in-bid-for-qatar-f1-sprint-pole/10677710/