Qatar Grand Prix Sprint Qualifying: Norris on pole, Ferrari flop
F1 NewsFriday, 29 November 2024 at 19:19
Lando Norris took pole for the final Sprint race of the 2024 Formula 1 season in Qatar while Ferrari's form vanished when it matters.
After Ferrari and McLaren emerged as the top two contenders for Sprint pole in Qatar, the Woking squad delivered the first blow in their penultimate round of battle for the 2024 F1 constructors' championship.
Ferrari with Charles Leclerc were fastest in the first and only practice session this weekend while Norris was chasing, but the tables turned in Sprint qualifying as McLaren were faster and would've locked the front row had it not been for George Russell who came from nowhere and crashed their party to take second.
As for Ferrari, Carlos Sainz was their faster driver, fourth fastest behind Piastri, while Leclerc was only good for fifth in the sister car.
As for Max Verstappen, the newly-crowned F1 champion was unable to deliver more than sixth place as Lewis Hamilton was again beaten by his teammate and will line up seventh on the starting grid of Saturday's Sprint race.
Pierre Gasly, once again, punched above his weight and finished the Sprint qualifying eighth fastest ahead of Nico Hulkenberg in ninth and Liam Lawson in tenth.
Lawson's result once again put Sergio Perez in bad light at the Mexican was out of the session at the end of SQ1, only 16th fastest.
Norris reflected after taking Sprint pole in Qatar, he said: "It's so quick around here. It feels like the quickest circuit of the year. 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. It was a decent lap. I made too many mistakes on my second lap. We were coming here to get pole and we did that, so job done today.
"I want to win," the Briton added when asked about the Sprint on Saturday. "We want to win every session as drivers. Our target is a one-two. We want to maximise points for the constructors'. We want to go for it.
"We know it will be a battle. Mercedes will be quick, Ferrari will be fast. I'm not expecting an easy one, probably an exciting one for everyone watching, so looking forward to tomorrow," Norris concluded.
SQ1: Surprise, surprise! Perez is out!
The Sprint qualifying started under the flood lights of the Lusail International Circuit in cooler conditions as the air temperature was 18 degrees Celsius as track temperature was 22 degrees.
As per the rules of Sprint qualifying, all the drivers have to use the Medium Pirellis in SQ1 (12 minutes) and SQ2 (10 minutes) with the Soft only used in SQ3 (8 minutes).
The drivers were out on track once the green light was lit at the end of the pitlane, as traffic was going to be a factor in SQ1.
With ten minutes left all drivers were out except for Norris, Piastri, Yuki Tsunoda, Fernando Alonso, Russell, Hamilton, and Perez.
Kevin Magnussen set the first time in the session with Lance Stroll going second fastest while Valtteri Bottas went straight to the top from his first effort.
But the big boys were behind on track setting their times with Leclerc soon going fastest with Verstappen second fastest while Sainz was fourth.
Norris then bettered Leclerc by over four tenths while Piastri was only good for sixth while Russell was second on his first timed lap as Hamilton was ninth.
The drivers kept on banging in the laps as the track kept improving while the lap times went tumbling, Leclerc and Sainz going first and second on their second runs, managing huge improvements, Verstappen going third 0.424s slower than Leclerc.
After another reshuffle of the order, Norris was the fastest with a lap time of 1:21.356 with Sainz second and Russell third while Verstappen was fourth. Hamilton was fifth as Leclerc was sixth.
Again Perez was knocked out and was 16th fastest missing out on SQ2 to Alex Albon by 0.013s.
Tsunoda was 17th fastest in the VCARB, 0.184s ahead of Esteban Ocon, 18th in the Alpine, the Frenchman in turn, 0.042s ahead of Zhou Guanyu in 19th while Franco Colapinto was dead last in the Williams.
SQ2: Alonso can't make the top ten
The second part of the Sprint qualifying was soon underway as the remaining 15 drivers, on Medium tyres set out on track for a ten-minute dash to make the top ten.
Verstappen went fastest ahead of Hulkenberg in second and Sainz in third, but soon Leclerc topped the times, half a tenth clear of Verstappen.
Norris then went second fastest as 0.058s separated the top three but soon Piastri went fastest but Verstappen then set an identical time to Piastri but was second because he did it after the Australian set his time.
Then Sainz and Leclerc went one and two as Russell and Hamilton were completing their runs. Russell went fastest, with Hamilton second.
Piastri had his lap time deleted for exceeding track limits at Turn 2 while Norris improved to first on his second run.
Piastri soon went for another lap and went third fastest.
With SQ2 over, the top ten drivers that made SQ3 were as follows: Norris - Russell - Piastri - Hamilton - Verstappen - Sainz - Leclerc - Hulkenberg - Gasly - Lawson.
As for the eliminated drivers, first came Alonso who missed out by 0.040s and will start the Sprint race from 11th on the grid.
Albon was 12th fastest, 0.093s behind Alonso and 0.012s clear of Bottas whose impressive run ended in 13th place.
Stroll and Magnussen were 14th and 15th respectively.
SQ1: Norris delivers, Russell overdelivers, Ferrari nowhere
The top ten drivers bolted on Soft tyres as they geared up for the decisive eight minutes of the evening in Qatar that will decide the top ten order of the final Sprint race in 2024.
Replay showed an Alpine driving out of its garage in the way of Verstappen, but now contact took place.
Leclerc went fastest ahead of Gasly, Lawson, Hamilton, Russell, Verstappen and Sainz, the bottom five not pushing on their first laps.
Norris then went fastest with Piastri second as Verstappen takes third but was dropped to fourth by Russell while Hamilton was fifth.
With a little over two minutes remaining, Hulkenberg finally made his way out on track.
There was only time for another round of hot laps and in the end it was Norris who took pole, 0.063s clear of Russell who was second in the Mercedes splitting the Papaya cars as Piastri was third fastest in the #81 car.
Norris delivered his best time in his first hot lap in SQ3, while errors meant his second lap was not better and he did not even complete it and dived into the pits instead of crossing the finish line.
But it turned out that his first effort was enough to take pole.
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