Oscar Piastri continued his title-race fightback at the Qatar Grand Prix by beating championship leader Lando Norris to pole position. After winning the Sprint at Lusail earlier on Saturday — reducing Norris’ lead to 22 points — Piastri edged out his McLaren team-mate to secure pole for Sunday’s race with a time of 1:19.387, 0.108s clear of Norris. Max Verstappen, who remains 25 points behind Norris in the standings and still has an outside chance of the title, qualified third for Red Bull.
Norris led Piastri after the first runs in Q3 but aborted his second attempt following an early error, saying he had “a bit of understeer” and had to abort when he was “going to go off.” Piastri said: “We left the car pretty much the same. Everything felt great all weekend. If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it!” He added that the two-stop race expected on Sunday will be “tough” and “incredibly fun,” with teams forced to make at least two pit stops because of a one-off rule limiting each tyre set to 25 laps.
Norris can still clinch the championship with a race to spare if he is 26 points or more ahead of Piastri and 25 points ahead of Verstappen after the race — effectively meaning he must gain four points on Piastri and finish ahead of Verstappen on Sunday.
George Russell narrowly missed out on demoting Verstappen to fourth, finishing fourth for Mercedes, 0.275s behind Piastri, ahead of team-mate Kimi Antonelli in fifth. Isack Hadjar was sixth for Racing Bulls, followed by Williams’ Carlos Sainz in seventh. Aston Martin’s Fernando Alonso and Alpine’s Pierre Gasly were eighth and ninth, with Charles Leclerc recovering to tenth after a spin in Q3.
Lewis Hamilton’s difficult weekend continued as the seven-time champion was eliminated in Q1 and qualified 18th, following a poor Sprint qualifying performance on Friday. Leclerc’s pace also looked limited at times, though he made it into Q3 before his late spin.
Piastri had arrived in Qatar on a run that had seen his championship lead evaporate from 34 points after the Dutch Grand Prix to a much slimmer position, describing his title hopes as an “outside shot” before the final two rounds. He rediscovered strong one-lap form in the Sprint and backed it up with pole, putting himself in a strong position to take the fight to the season finale in Abu Dhabi.
Qualifying times (top 10)
1) Oscar Piastri (McLaren) 1:19.387
2) Lando Norris (McLaren) +0.108
3) Max Verstappen (Red Bull) +0.264
4) George Russell (Mercedes) +0.275
5) Kimi Antonelli (Mercedes) +0.459
6) Isack Hadjar (Racing Bulls) +0.727
7) Carlos Sainz (Williams) +0.900
8) Fernando Alonso (Aston Martin) +1.031
9) Pierre Gasly (Alpine) +1.090
10) Charles Leclerc (Ferrari) +1.174
Sunday’s race build-up begins in the afternoon with the Qatar Grand Prix scheduled for 16:00 local broadcast time, where the two-stop strategy and tyre-lap limit promise an intense title showdown.