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Piastri tightens up title fight with crucial Qatar GP pole

Oscar Piastri took a crucial pole position for the Qatar Grand Prix, beating Lando Norris in second and Max Verstappen in third.

Norris’ first run in Q3 was set up with an excellent first sector, and although Piastri fought back across the remaining two, he fell just 0.035s short of his teammate’s time. Verstappen was nearly half a second off, but there was drama elsewhere as Charles Leclerc suffered a massive spin out of Turn 15 – a moment that had been coming all weekend given the Ferrari’s handling difficulties – and Carlos Sainz was the cause of a bizarre red flag.

Williams released Sainz’s car from the garage and as he drove out into the pit lane, his rear tires pulled up the stickers from the floor of the garage, wrapping them around the rubber. The stickers came off after three corners, but once the first runs were complete the sessions was halted to clear the debris from the track.

When running resumed, Norris ran wide at Turn 2 and had to abort his lap, leaving the door open for Piastri to put it all together to take pole position by 0.108s. Given the difficulty overtaking in Qatar, it’s a crucial result, with a victory for Norris enough to give him the title on Sunday.

Verstappen was struggling for pace at times but pulled out a strong final lap to secure third on the grid, a quarter of a second off Piastri. The Dutchman, 25 points adrift, needs to outscore Norris on Sunday to stay in title contention, while Piastri is 22 points behind his teammate.

The Mercedes pair of George Russell and Kimi Antonelli will start from fourth and fifth, ahead of Isack Hadjar, Sainz, Fernando Alonso and Leclerc.

A fight to reach Q3 itself proved to be extremely close, with Leclerc only making it through by 0.010s – still enough for ninth in the second part of qualifying. Hadjar’s P10 lap in Q2 was just 0.003s quicker than Nico Hulkenberg, who dropped out in 11th place ahead of Liam Lawson and Ollie Bearman. Six cars were covered by 0.114s either side of the cut-off line, led by Gasly in eighth. 

Gabriel Bortoleto advanced to Q2 by a little over 0.1s but after qualifying 14th he will start from 19th due to a five-place grid penalty picked up for causing a collision at the start of last weekend’s Las Vegas Grand Prix. Alex Albon – who faces an investigation following the session for a potential pit lane infringement – will start from 14th as a result of Bortoleto’s penalty.

The first part of qualifying saw a number of off-track moments for multiple drivers, with Turn 15 – the penultimate corner – particularly troublesome. Some laps were deleted, including one for Gasly – his for exceeding track limits at Turn 8 – that saw him lose his fastest time and still advance.

Alpine’s Gasly dropped to 15th and was still able to continue in the session, showing the extent of the problems for Ferrari, as Lewis Hamilton made his third consecutive exit in the first part of qualifying. Hamilton had been quicker than teammate Leclerc on the first new tire run in Q1, but did not hook it up for his final attempt and ended up 18th overall.

The gap between Hamilton and Leclerc at that stage was 0.343s, and it was a similar margin – 0.289s – between Yuki Tsunoda and Verstappen in Q1. While Tsunoda outqualified Verstappen in Sprint qualifying, on this occasion the Japanese driver was 16th quickest and knocked out early.

Esteban Ocon finished in 17th, Lance Stroll in 19th and Franco Colapinto in 20th – all out in Q1.

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