Oscar Piastri qualifies third for Qatar sprint as McLaren, Ferrari and Red Bull fight for constructors' title
Australia's Oscar Piastri qualified third for the sprint race in Qatar as McLaren teammate Lando Norris beat Mercedes' George Russell by just .063 of a second to take pole position.
“Great qualifying today, especially to bounce back from where we were last time out in Vegas,” said Norris, whose title chances ended with a sixth-place finish behind Verstappen in Las Vegas. “We're coming here to get pole and we did that, so job done for today."
Charles Leclerc led the way in the sole practice session earlier in the day, with Norris 0.425 seconds slower and Piastri .047 further back. Verstappen was 11th fastest.
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Verstappen won big in Las Vegas with his fourth world title, but the fight for Formula 1's biggest cash prize is hotting up this week in the Middle Eastern country.
The lucrative constructors' championship is still wide open with McLaren, Ferrari and Red Bull battling for the title. The contest for teams is worth around $215 million to the winner, though the precise pay-out depends on variables.
Oscar Piastri of Australia will start third for the sprint Getty
The sprint race means extra points are on offer — a maximum of 59 for a team over the whole weekend.
McLaren leads by 24 points from Ferrari, with Verstappen's Red Bull 29 further back. McLaren could seal its first constructors' crown since 1998 this weekend, wrapping up the title ahead of the final round in Abu Dhabi next week, but would likely need either a perfect weekend or for Ferrari to encounter problems.
The contributions of Piastri, who won the Qatar sprint race as a rookie last year, have been key to McLaren's hopes. Ferrari's Leclerc and Sainz have been close on the track — and sometimes too close for comfort — all year.
Red Bull's Sergio Perez is the only driver at the top three teams without a race win this year and he's eighth in the standings with less than half of Verstappen’s points total. Perez was 18th fastest in practice and qualified 16th for the sprint, his latest dismal results.
Perez, who has faced speculation over his future almost all year, says he's struggled to make the title-winning Red Bull car fit his driving style.
“It’s very difficult for people to understand if they’re not part of the team,” he said Thursday. “When you are not able to extract 100 percent out of your car, it’s irrelevant how good your car is, and this is what happened.”
