F1 Qatar GP: Norris takes sprint pole from Russell, Piastri

Lando Norris took pole for the Qatar Grand Prix sprint race over Las Vegas Formula 1 winner George Russell after setting his best time at the first attempt in the final stage.

McLaren driver Norris set a 1m21.012s on his first attempt on soft tyres, doing so without the preparation lap that other drivers attempted to exploit.

The Briton 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 subsided with time lost over the rest of the lap.

As the Australian could not improve, Russell took advantage and moved up to second – 0.063s 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 Spaniard 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 team-mate Charles Leclerc, while championship winner Max Verstappen was sixth – having also been unable to improve on his final tour.

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 Kiwi 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 bag his chance in the top 10 shootout.

Alex Albon was also displaced from the top 10 among the final runs after a twitch at Turn 15 appeared to cost a sliver of time on his last lap.

The Williams driver was 0.012s clear of Sauber’s Valtteri Bottas, who could not deliver on the time he’d made up in the opening two sectors and fell short at the final hurdle. Lance Stroll and Kevin Magnussen were also eliminated in Q2.

Sergio Perez was dumped out during the opening stage, having fallen short of the on-the-cusp Albon by 0.013s. He maintained a 0.004s 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 handful 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.