Norris storms to impressive Sprint Qualifying pole in Qatar ahead of Russell and Piastri

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.
Fernando Alonso missed out on joining the top-10 shootout, the Aston Martin man being pushed out of SQ2 in 11th. He will share the sixth row with the Williams of Alex Albon, ahead of Kick Sauber’s Valtteri Bottas who enjoyed a solid Sprint Qualifying session.
Lance Stroll made it a double elimination for Aston Martin as the Canadian ended the segment in P14, while Kevin Magnussen also failed to progress further in P15 for Haas.
It was another tough day for Sergio Perez, with the Red Bull driver again suffering an early departure in P16. Yuki Tsunoda will likely be disappointed, too, having exited in P17 for RB.
Joining them in the elimination zone in SQ1 were the Alpine of Esteban Ocon, Kick Sauber’s Zhou Guanyu and Franco Colapinto in the Williams from 18th to 20th respectively.
Just hours on from the sole practice session of the weekend, the drivers and teams reassembled for Sprint Qualifying at the Lusail International Circuit, ready to decide the grid for the final Sprint of the season.
With the sun having set in Qatar, the floodlights lit the circuit as SQ1 got under way at 2030 local time. Magnussen led the pack out for the 12-minute segment, in which the medium tyre is the mandatory compound.
Bottas caught the eye by going fastest as the first laps went on the board, but the times quickly tumbled as the track evolved and it was Norris who held P1 when everybody had completed their initial efforts, the McLaren man leading the way on a 1m 22.785s.
At the other end of the spectrum, Ocon, Albon, Perez, Colapinto and Lawson were the drivers at risk in the bottom five – surely not a welcome sight for Perez given the Mexican’s recent qualifying struggles.
Lawson was clearly pushing hard, with the RB driver kicking up some gravel during a wide moment, while Leclerc had displaced Norris at the top – before the Briton retook the position, highlighting just how quickly the track was developing in the final minutes.
Perez had managed to improve to 12th – but could he remain out of danger given the rapidly falling times? Back at the front, Russell had impressively set an identical lap time to Norris’s effort of 1m 22.021s.
In a frantic traffic-packed final minute, the times kept coming in and Norris went even faster with a 1m 21.356s, almost half a second clear of Sainz in P2. Bottas, meanwhile, slotted into ninth – though others were not having such good fortune, including Perez who again suffered an early exit in P16.
There was also disappointment for Tsunoda, who was left frustrated after being eliminated in P17, while the other drivers pushed out were Ocon, Zhou and Colapinto, marking a first Q1 departure for the Argentinian.
Knocked out: Perez, Tsunoda, Ocon, Zhou, Colapinto
After a busy end to SQ1, attentions quickly turned to the second segment of Sprint Qualifying, with several drivers heading out on track as SQ2 began.
Leclerc – who had topped the timesheets in FP1 earlier in the day – was the initial pace-setter, going quickest with an effort of 1m 22.130s. This was soon bettered by Piastri by a gap of just eight-hundredths – while Verstappen then matched that time exactly.
The name at the top of the leaderboard continued to change as the minutes ticked down, particularly when Piastri’s lap was deleted due to exceeding track limits, dropping the Australian down into the elimination zone.
That did not last for long, however, as Piastri promptly hauled himself back up into third – despite going slightly wide en route. Team mate Norris looked to have sealed P1 by pumping in a 1m 21.231s, while other made their final attempts to improve.
Albon initially looked to have made it through to the top 10 – before being pushed down by Lawson, while Gasly moved up into P9 which also dropped Alonso into P11. Albon followed in P12, ahead of Bottas, Stroll and Magnussen.
Knocked out: Alonso, Albon, Bottas, Stroll, Magnussen
The remaining drivers were quick to head out as the eight-minute SQ3 segment began, with all sporting the mandatory soft tyre for the top-10 shootout.
Norris was one of those to hit the track later – and this seemed to work in the Briton’s favour, having quickly gone fastest on a lap of 1m 21.012s, putting him 0.159s ahead of team mate Piastri.
Russell slotted into third, ahead of Verstappen in fourth and Hamilton in fifth. But would anybody manage to better their initial efforts? While Norris peeled into the pits on his next lap, Piastri initially looked faster – but could not improve as he took the chequered flag.
One driver who did go quicker, though, was Russell, with the winner from last time out in Las Vegas slotting into second to break up that McLaren front row lockout. Sainz, meanwhile, left it late to put a representative time in and ultimately took fourth.
Ferrari team mate Leclerc was just behind in fifth, pushing Verstappen down to sixth place, while Hamilton claimed seventh ahead of Gasly, Hulkenberg and Lawson.
“It’s tough because it’s so quick around here,” said Norris. “It feels like the quickest circuit of the year. The final sector – you’re just hanging on. Great qualifying today, especially to bounce back from where we were last time out in Vegas, it’s a nice thing to do – so 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.”
With the grid now decided, the drivers will next return to action for the Sprint on Saturday, which is set to begin at 1700 local time. Head to the RACE HUB to find out how you can catch the action.