Lando Norris claimed an impressive pole position for the Qatar GP Sprint as McLaren struck the first blow in their constructors’ title battle with Ferrari by taking first and third on Saturday’s grid.
Five days after he saw his bid for the Drivers’ Championship against Max Verstappen officially ended Las Vegas, Norris topped all three segments of Sprint Qualifying around the high-speed Lusail International Circuit to return to the front of the grid in commanding style.
But Mercedes’ George Russell – the race winner in Las Vegas – denied title-chasing McLaren a front-row lockout by pipping Oscar Piastri to the other front-row berth.
Norris’ pacesetting time of 1:21.012 was 0.063s ahead of Russell, with Piastri a further 0.096s adrift.
Ferrari, who trail McLaren by 24 points with two race weekends to go, had looked quick in the earlier sole practice session but failed to mount a challenge in SQ3, with Carlos Sainz and Charles Leclerc qualifying only fourth and fifth respectively.
New four-time champion Verstappen was never in the mix in his Red Bull and could only manage sixth, although that was still 10 places higher than struggling team-mate Sergio Perez.
With no end to his on-track travails seemingly in sight as speculation continues to swirl about his future beyond the end of the season next week, Perez was knocked out in SQ1 in 16th place – the seventh time in a qualifying session this year that the Mexican has failed to clear the first hurdle.
Lewis Hamilton was again outqualified comfortably by Mercedes team-mate Russell and will start seventh, with Alpine’s Pierre Gasly eighth as the Frenchman’s fine late-season run continues.
“I’m just slow. Same every weekend,” admitted Hamilton, whose Mercedes career will end next week at the season-ending Abu Dhabi before his winter switch to Ferrari.
“The car felt relatively decent. No issues. Not really much more to say.”
RB’s Liam Lawson, who is eyeing up Perez’s seat in the main Red Bull team for next season, made the top 10 although lost ninth to Haas’ Nico Hulkenberg after his final lap time was deleted for a track limits infringement.
Norris takes control as McLaren deliver on expectation
Having experienced one of their few disappointing events of the season in Sin City last week when they were outpaced by their three key rivals, McLaren had expected their MCL38 car to be back on true front-running form around the 16-turn Lusail track given the track’s abundance of high-speed corners.
It was a prediction proved absolutely correct around the floodlit circuit on Friday evening as the title-chasing Woking outfit delivered a near-perfect start to their Qatar weekend.
Norris set the fastest time in all three knockout segments and, although his end-of-session advantages came down from a high of half a second in SQ1 to less than a tenth by the decisive SQ3, the Briton always appeared to have enough in hand over his rivals.
“It’s so quick around here. It feels like the quickest circuit of the year,” said Norris, who claimed his first Sprint pole since the first short-form event of the year in China. “The final sector feels like you’re hanging on.
“A great qualifying, especially to bounce back from where we were in Las Vegas. It’s a nice thing to do.”
Norris stayed on pole ahead of an improving Russell despite abandoning a final lap which he admitted contained “too many mistakes”. He is now looking to make his starting advantage count by winning the 25-lap Sprint.
“I expect them all to be a challenge,” added Norris.
“I don’t expect an easy race, for sure. I think the long run stuff could easily suit the Mercedes a bit more than it suits us, but I’m still hopeful that we can get a good race in.
“And we want to score maximum points from a constructor point of view, even though the points are minimal and one position is a point, we still want to go out and get every point we can.”
McLaren qualified and finished one-two in F1’s last Sprint at the Sao Paulo GP at the start of the month but a strong final SQ3 lap from an in-form Russell denied them the absolute dream start here in Qatar.
Although he finished so close behind Norris in the end, Russell admitted his compatriot was still “a smidge out of reach”. However, with the McLaren drivers needing to focus on scoring points to aid McLaren’s constructors’ title quest, Russell said: “They are in a big championship fight. We have nothing to lose. We are going for the big results.
“We will try to make a good start. The Sprint is just the Sprint. We need to focus on qualifying as well.”
Ferrari ‘back to reality’ in fourth and fifth
In contrast to McLaren, Ferrari came into the weekend playing down their prospects before expectation was raised by a promising start in practice when Leclerc set the pace from Norris by four tenths of a second.
Sprint Qualifying, however, underlined the challenge ahead this weekend against their chief rivals.
“We gave it our all and are only P4 and P5, which is not great considering how important this weekend is,” acknowledged Leclerc.
“Let’s say, for whatever reason, FP1 was a lot above our expectations. This I will say is in line with what we expected. We are coming back to reality.”
Sainz though offered hope for an improved Saturday by suggesting: “We have potential to improve a lot the car, especially on the soft tyre, and that will mean that we can hopefully make some steps forward.”
Ferrari need to avoid being outscored by McLaren by a total of 21 points or more this weekend in order to stay in the hunt for the Constructors’ Championship heading to Abu Dhabi next week.
Sky Sports F1’s live Qatar GP schedule
Saturday November 30
12.10pm: F1 Academy Qualifying
1pm: Qatar GP Sprint build-up
2pm: QATAR GP SPRINT
3.30pm: Ted’s Sprint Notebook
4pm: F2 Sprint Race
5.15pm: Qatar GP Qualifying build-up
6pm: QATAR GP QUALIFYING
8pm: F1 Academy: Race One
8.45pm: Ted’s Qualifying Notebook
Sunday December 1
10.55am: F1 Academy Race Two
12.15pm: F2 Feature Race
2.30pm: Grand Prix Sunday: Qatar GP build-up
4pm: THE QATAR GRAND PRIX
6pm: Chequered Flag: Qatar GP reaction
7pm: Ted’s Notebook
Formula 1’s season-ending triple-header continues this weekend with the Qatar Grand Prix, live on Sky Sports F1. Stream the final two F1 races and more with a NOW Sports Month Membership – No contract, cancel anytime