Red Bull’s Max Verstappen has a chance to win the World Driver’s Championship during the sprint race at the Qatar Grand Prix on Saturday, but he still isn’t giving up on winning the race on Sunday, either.
Verstappen qualified on pole by a decent margin on Friday, besting the second-fastest driver in Mercedes’ George Russell by almost half a second. The deficit comes during a session that saw numerous violations for track limits enforced in multiple sections of qualifying.
The first notable victim of track limits was Verstappen’s teammate in Sergio Perez, who had his final push lap deleted in Q2. That left Perez starting 13th, making him unlikely to challenge Verstappen and prevent him from winning the championship this weekend. It was McLaren in Q3 that suffered the brunt of it, though — track limits sent driver Lando Norris from second to 10th and Oscar Piastri from third to sixth, hurting their chances to fill up the front rows. Instead, both Russell and Lewis Hamilton will represent Mercedes at the next two spots off Verstappen with Aston Martin’s Fernando Alonso rounding out the top 4.
Here’s how qualifying shaped out in Qatar:
- Max Verstappen (Red Bull) [1:23.778]
- George Russell (Mercedes) [1:24.219]
- Lewis Hamilton (Mercedes) [1:24.305]
- Fernando Alonso (Aston Martin) [1:24.369]
- Charles Leclerc (Ferrari) [1:24.424]
- Oscar Piastri (McLaren) [1:24.540]
- Pierre Gasly (Alpine) [1.24.553]
- Esteban Ocon (Alpine) [1.24.763]
- Valtteri Bottas (Alfa Romeo) [1:25.058]
- Lando Norris (McLaren) [LAP TIME DELETED]
- Yuki Tsunoda (AlphaTauri) [1:25.301]
- Carlos Sainz (Ferrari) [1:25.328]
- Sergio Perez (Red Bull) [1:25.462]
- Alexander Albon (Williams) [1:25.707]
- Nico Hulkenberg (Haas) [1:25.783]
- Logan Sargeant (Williams) [1:26.210]
- Lance Stroll (Aston Martin) [1:26.345]
- Liam Lawson (AlphaTauri) [1:26.365]
- Kevin Magnussen (Haas) [1:27.046]
- Zhou Guanyu (Alfa Romeo) [1:27.432]