A day of contrasts at the Lusail circuit in Qatar. In the Sprint Race, McLaren finished first and second with Lando Norris voluntarily letting team-mate Oscar Piastri pass him within sight of the chequered flag, after helping the Australian all race long, by keeping him in DRS distance so that Piastri could defend from George Russell in the Mercedes who finished third.

With no parc ferme between the Sprint and Qualifying, the teams were all able to modify their set-up and car configuration to improve performance. This appeared to alter the hierarchy, with Red Bull back in front. Eighth in the Sprint, his worst ever result in the short race format, Max Verstappen secured pole position for tomorrow’s Grand Prix, beating Russell right at the end by, just 55 thousandths of a second: 1’20”520 for the Dutchman and 1’20”575 for the Englishman. The Red Bull driver was later given a one place grid penalty for having been deemed by the Stewards to have driven unnecessarily slowly on a cool down lap in Q3. Max therefore stays on the front row, but it’s Russell who will start from pole. The McLaren duo had to settle for the second row with Norris ahead of Piastri, both of them ahead of their direct rivals Ferrari in the fight for the Constructors’ title, with Charles Leclerc starting fifth and Carlos Sainz seventh, Lewis Hamilton splitting them in sixth.

This was Verstappen’s first pole position since the Austrian Grand Prix and it ensures that he tops the table for poles this season, with nine, as in second place on seven, Norris can no longer beat him. The four time world champion will receive the 2024 Pirelli Pole Position of the Year Award, next Sunday at the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix. Tonight’s pole was Max’s 41st, and Red Bull Racing’s 105th.

THE DAY ON TRACK
For the Sprint race, 19 of the 20 drivers started on the Medium, the one exception being Guanyu Zhou who lined up on the Softs, before switching to the C2 after 10 laps. Starting from pit lane, Franco Colapinto was the only driver to use a completely new set, while Carlos Sainz and Charles Leclerc were on sets that had only done one scrubbing-in lap in yesterday’s FP1.

For qualifying, all drivers used the Soft. The only yellow mark in the graph that shows the compounds used in each session came courtesy of George Russell who, at the start of Q1, imitated what the Ferrari duo had done the previous day, scrubbing in a set of C2s.

The Pirelli Pole Position Awards was presented to Verstappen by Qatari high jumper Mutaz Barshim, a three-time world champion (London 2017, Doha 2019 and Eugene 2022). He also won gold in the 2021 Tokyo Olympics, sharing the honour with Italy’s Gianmarco Tamberi. The “Qatari Falcon” as Mutaz is known, has three other Olympic medals to his name: silver in London 2012 and Rio de Janeiro in 2016 and a bronze in Paris in 2024. His personal best is 2.43 metres, an Asian record in this discipline.

MARIO ISOLA - HEAD OF F1 AND CAR RACING
“A very busy Saturday, as always on a Sprint weekend. The short race allowed us to check the behaviour of the Medium over a long distance and, from what we have seen so far, the indications from yesterday – very limited degradation, signs of wear and graining but not to any worrying degree – would seem to have been confirmed. We saw just one driver try the Soft in the Sprint, whereas last year there was a greater variety of choices made and so it is difficult to draw any definitive conclusions, as the data comes from just the one car. The Sauber driver’s choice highlights that the C3 requires very careful management if its life is to be extended for any sort of significant stint.

In qualifying we saw that track evolution slowed down, stabilising in the second half. More significant was the impact of the wind which gradually reduced in strength, especially in the last part. The relatively low temperatures around 18/20 °C for both air and track, led to drivers taking different approaches to the flying lap. Some went for the classic out/timed/in while others did a preparation lap and still others, Verstappen in Q3 for example, doing just one run with two cool down laps. It is worth underlining the progress in lap times, not just the 3”258 improvement on last year with the same tyres and technical regulations, but also when compared to 2021 when the cars weighed almost fifty kilos less and Hamilton’s pole for the inaugural edition of this race was a 1’20”827.

Based on today’s data, the one-stop option is looking even stronger. It’s true that in the Sprint we saw some cars reach the limit in terms of tyre wear but it did not cause a significant drop in performance. Furthermore, the track characteristics with no really heavy braking points, makes overtaking rather complicated, especially if cars find themselves in a DRS train as we saw in the Sprints, both F1 and F2. The Medium should be the favoured choice for the start, with a pit stop to take on Hards in a window between laps 16 and 24. Those starting at the back could run the two hardest compounds the other way round, while those considering a two-stop could decide to make the most of the better performance on offer from the Soft in the very early stages and then continue with two sets of Hard or possibly, one Hard and one Medium.”

FORMULA 2
Oliver Bearman won the penultimate Sprint Race of the FIA Formula 2 Championship. The English Scuderia Ferrari Driver Academy driver, is already sure of an F1 seat with Haas next year, having taken part in three Grands Prix this season. In his Prema Racing car, he started from pole and got the better of a duel that became ever more intense over several laps with Isack Hadjar, who then dropped out of contention for a podium finish having led for much of the race. The pair had gone for different tyre choices: the Englishman started on the Hard and Campos Racing’s French driver with the Medium. He then paid the price for this aggressive choice when his performance dropped in the final quarter of the race. The second and third spots on the podium went to second placed American Jak Crawford (DAMS Lucas Oil) and in third, Dutchman Richard Verschoor (MP Motorsport).