Leclerc surprised by Ferrari gains on McLaren in Qatar

Charles Leclerc says he would have signed up for a second place in the Qatar Grand Prix ahead of the race after being surprised by Ferrari’s ability to take points off McLaren. Max Verstappen held of Lando Norris in a close fight for the majority of …

Charles Leclerc says he would have signed up for a second place in the Qatar Grand Prix ahead of the race after being surprised by Ferrari’s ability to take points off McLaren.

Max Verstappen held of Lando Norris in a close fight for the majority of Sunday’s race, with Leclerc running third after multiple safety car periods. Norris then received a penalty that dropped him out of contention and after beating Oscar Piastri to second place, Leclerc was delighted to close the gap in the constructors’ championship to 21 points.

“Honestly, I would have signed straight away if I had a paper that told me that we will finish second after a weekend like this, especially on a track like this, because our car characteristics are not fitting very well with this track,” Leclerc said. “We knew it was going to be a very difficult weekend compared to the McLaren, but at the end, we managed to take some points away from them. So the fight will be all the way to the last race in Abu Dhabi next week.

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“Yes, we did (exceed expectations) because to be honest, we knew that it would be very difficult pace-wise. We expected McLaren to be very strong in terms of race pace. We maybe did not expect Max to be that strong, but he was super strong.

“However, finishing second after such a weekend, where the track characteristics are very far off from the optimal we need for our car, is a surprise.

“We got a little bit lucky, obviously on my side. A bit unlucky with Carlos and his puncture. But as a team, it’s been a positive weekend. So yes, we exceeded our expectations because coming into the weekend, I kind of expected to lose a points compared to McLaren here. However, we recovered some, so that’s good.”

One of the reasons Leclerc believes Ferrari surprised itself was by accepting it was unlikely to be overly competitive and not worrying about the potential gap to its rivals at the start of the event.

“We knew that it wasn’t going to be our strongest weekend, but we decided to just focus on ourselves and try to do what was the best possible result for us, and I think we achieved that very well. We should be happy. Then we of course need to look at what we can do in the future to be faster on those kind of tracks, but this weekend we did work very well as a team.”

Verstappen ‘lost all respect’ for Russell over Qatar pole penalty

Max Verstappen says he “lost all respect” for George Russell for the way he pushed for a penalty to cost the Red Bull driver pole position at the Qatar Grand Prix. Russell came across Verstappen going slowly on the racing line as both drivers were …

Max Verstappen says he “lost all respect” for George Russell for the way he pushed for a penalty to cost the Red Bull driver pole position at the Qatar Grand Prix.

Russell came across Verstappen going slowly on the racing line as both drivers were preparing to start their final qualifying laps in Q3, and complained the pace differential between the two was “super dangerous.” The stewards investigated the incident because Verstappen was outside the maximum lap time permitted during qualifying — designed to stop drivers slowing down significantly on track — and handed the Dutchman a one-place grid penalty, stating the normal three-place drop was mitigated by the fact neither car was on a flying lap.

“Honestly, I mean… I couldn’t believe that I got it,” Verstappen said after being demoted from pole position to second on the grid. “But in a way, I was also like, yeah, I’m not surprised anymore in the world that I live in. You’re not happy with it, but at one point or another, you have to just turn the page.

“It wasn’t very enjoyable to see that happen, because I think that’s the first time that in a slow lap someone has been penalized. Actually, I just tried to be nice, so maybe I shouldn’t be nice! But the thing is that being nice, because at the end of the season everything is more or less decided, for me especially, I didn’t want to screw anyone over to prepare their lap. And by doing that, being nice, basically you get a penalty.

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“That’s what I tried to explain as well, but I just felt like I was talking to a brick wall. There’s not much that was possible for whatever reason. I think I really spoke about valid reasons of what happened and it was clear cut that around me there were different scenarios going on as well, with people having colder tires and stuff, so they had to push anyway and I didn’t want to then cause a scene into a last corner and then no one had a lap. Very, very surprising.

“I was quite surprised when sitting there in the stewards’ room, what was all going on. Honestly, very disappointing because I think … we respect each other a lot and I’ve been in that meeting room many times in my career with people that have raced and I’ve never seen someone trying to screw someone over that hard. And that for me … I lost all respect.”

Verstappen went on to overtake Russell into the first corner and win at Lusail International Circuit, but speaking to Dutch television he was even more scathing of the Mercedes driver.

“How it was handled from the other side, so to speak,” Verstappen told Viaplay. “The other driver in question, during that stewards meeting — that really didn’t make any sense. I think I have a lot of respect for a lot of drivers, but after last night I completely lost that with him. I just thought it was ridiculous how he wanted to give me a penalty for that case.

“He always acts very politely in front of the camera, but when you meet him in person, he’s just a different person. I find it very difficult to cope. Then you might as well just [explaetive] off.”

Norris owns up to Qatar GP penalty: ‘I let the team down’

Lando Norris says he has no complaints about the severity of his penalty for not slowing for yellow flags in the Qatar Grand Prix and apologized to McLaren for costing the team points. The stewards gave Norris a 10s stop-and-go penalty for failing …

Lando Norris says he has no complaints about the severity of his penalty for not slowing for yellow flags in the Qatar Grand Prix and apologized to McLaren for costing the team points.

The stewards gave Norris a 10s stop-and-go penalty for failing to slow for yellow flags during the first half of the race when a wing mirror was sitting on the pit straight. On the lap in question, Norris gained more than half a second on the cars around him — setting a personal best — in the first sector, and he says he was unaware of the yellow flag but did not dispute the penalty.

“Disappointed, of course. I let the team down,” Norris said. “The team gave me a great car today. Easily the quickest out there and I [expletive] it up.

“I don’t know what I did wrong. I’m not an idiot — if there’s a yellow flag I know I need to slow down, that’s rule number one. [And] don’t go past people. For some reason I didn’t do that today, because I’ve not seen it or I’ve missed it or something.

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“I have to take it on the chin. If they think I’ve done something wrong, I must have done something wrong. I can only apologize for the rest of the year to the team.

“I didn’t give up until the end. I did [the] best I could. I’m disappointed — two points for the quickest car I’ve ever seen.”

When it was put to Norris that some commenters had been surprised at the scale of penalty, he was dismissive of any complaints.

“It’s fine,” he said. “If I did what they said I did wrong, then good on them for giving me the quick penalty.”

Norris says he will have to make sure he doesn’t make any further mistakes in Abu Dhabi next weekend to give the team the best chance possible to secure the constructors’ championship.

“The team gave me the best car out there today,” he said. “I’m very happy and thankful for them to do so. I got a good start, I got past George [Russell]. I thought George would be our biggest competitor today and that wasn’t the case; Max was, and he did an incredible job.

“We go in the same as every weekend, wanting to win, wanting to be the best, wanting to be the fastest. I just need to not be an idiot and do what I did.”

Verstappen wins chaotic Qatar GP

Max Verstappen won a chaotic Qatar Grand Prix after Lando Norris was punished with a 10s stop-go penalty for failing to slow for yellow flags. Verstappen got a perfect launch despite starting from second place on the dirty side of the grid, pulling …

Max Verstappen won a chaotic Qatar Grand Prix after Lando Norris was punished with a 10s stop-go penalty for failing to slow for yellow flags.

Verstappen got a perfect launch despite starting from second place on the dirty side of the grid, pulling himself alongside polesitter George Russell into the first turn to take the lead.

Norris briefly threatened to beat both to first place by diving underneath them at the long right-hander, but the Briton thought better of trying to hang around Verstappen’s outside through Turn 2, slotting instead into second place. The Briton shadowed the Dutchman for almost the entire race but had his night undone when Alex Albon lost a mirror at the end of the front straight just before lap 30.

Race control attempted to cover the on-track debris with yellow flags, and Verstappen registered with his pit wall that Norris gained around 0.8s on the lead into the first corner, suggesting he had ignored the caution.

The issue eventually made its way to the stewards, who on lap 45 handed the McLaren driver a race-destroying 10s stop-and-go penalty that dropped him to the back of the pack.

A late dash hauled Norris back up to 10th with the bonus point for fastest lap, but it eliminated McLaren’s chance of claiming the constructors’ championship this weekend. It also slashed Norris’s hold on second in the drivers standings to just eight points ahead of Charles Leclerc.

With Norris out of the picture, Verstappen was unchallenged in winning his second race in three grands prix, leading every lap in a dominant performance for his first weekend as the newly crowned world champion.

“It was a very good race,” he said. “It’s been a while in the dry to be this competitive.

“Very proud of everyone within the team to turn it around within a day [since the sprint], so they definitely also deserve this victory.”

The result wasn’t enough to prevent Red Bull Racing from being eliminated from constructors championship contention, leaving the team fighting for second at best in the Abu Dhabi finale next weekend.

Charles Leclerc beat Oscar Piastri to second place in a battle that also swung on the tardy deployment of the safety car.

Piastri lost a place to Leclerc in the first turn, but the restart from a first-lap safety car — to collect a three-way first-corner clash between Nico Hulkenberg, Esteban Ocon and Franco Colapinto, the latter two of whom retired on the spot — got him back into what was then fourth place behind Russell.

The McLaren was quicker than the Mercedes through the Lusail International Circuit’s high-speed sweeps but not down the straight, where this year’s shortened DRS zone made overtaking difficult among the equally matched front-runners.

It frustrated the Australian, whose car snapped off track several times at the final corner in dogged pursuit of Mercedes until lap 23, when Russell was hauled into pit lane for his sole tire change. It was a disastrous stop, with a stuck rear-right wheel holding him in his box for a massive 7s. He joined the race behind midfield runners Kevin Magnussen, Pierre Gasly and Fernando Alonso.

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McLaren opted against responding immediately. Despite Piastri’s pressure, the Australian’s tires were still in good condition, and with clear air he was faster than the fresh-tired Russell buried in the pack, who was complaining of understeer on his hard rubber. What should have been an easy gain was undone by an unfortunately timed pit stop on lap 34, when Lewis Hamilton and Carlos Sainz both reported front-left punctures from the debris on the main straight.

Having attempted to mask the debris with a yellow flag, race control finally called for a safety car on lap 35 to clear the circuit, allowing every driver yet to pit to change tires cheaply. It shuffled Leclerc back ahead of Piastri, and the Ferrari driver was able to hold onto the unlikely result ahead of the McLaren.

Combined with Norris’s lowly score and Carlos Sainz finishing sixth, Ferrari improbably reduced its deficit to the constructors’ championship lead to 21 points with one round remaining.

“I’m really happy,” Leclerc said. “We knew it was going to be a very difficult weekend compared to the McLaren, but in the end we managed to take some points away from them.”

Piastri lamented that McLaren, which finished one-two in the sprint, was unable to capitalize on a circuit that strongly suited its car.

“Nice to stand up on the podium, but not quite the result we were looking for,” he said. “Hopefully we can be strong [in Abu Dhabi], but it’s going to take everything we’ve got to seal the deal [for the title].”

Russell finished fourth, his race rescued from its poor first stop by the succession of safety cars after the Hamilton and Sainz punctures. He lined up seventh after the field made their mandatory stops and gained two places at the restart — one for passing Gasly and another when Sergio Perez retired with what appeared to be a technical issue shortly before the race got back underway — but could make no progress towards rescuing a podium.

Russell was lucky to hold fourth after serving a 5s safety car infringement penalty, dropping him to just 2.6s ahead of Gasly, who took home a title-changing 10 points for Alpine, boosting the team back to sixth in the standings with a five-point advantage over Haas.

Sainz would have finished on the podium even with his puncture but for a slow 9s stop after his car was dropped off its front jack before his front-right tire had been changed, leaving him sixth ahead of Fernando Alonso, who battled to seventh for Aston Martin’s first score since September’s Singapore Grand Prix.

Zhou Guanyu scored his and Sauber’s first points of the season in eighth ahead of Kevin Magnussen and the penalized Norris.

Valtteri Bottas finished 11th ahead of Hamilton in a pitiful race. The seven-time champion was off the pace from the beginning before picking up his puncture and subsequently pleaded to have his car retired after picking up a drive-through penalty for speeding through pit lane during the safety car period, but he was told to continue, finishing 12th.

RB teammates Yuki Tsunoda and Liam Lawson had no pace on their way to 13th and 14th. Albon finished last after unsuccessfully gambling on soft tires for the safety car restart, leaving him plummeting down the order late in the race, which had already been compromised by a collision with Lance Stroll on the first lap, for which the Canadian was penalized and later retired.

Hamilton ‘looking forward to the end’ after qualifying woes in Qatar

Lewis Hamilton says he doesn’t know where his qualifying pace has gone and that he’s looking forward to the end of his Mercedes career ahead of the Qatar Grand Prix. George Russell qualified on the front row for both the Sprint and Sunday’s main …

Lewis Hamilton says he doesn’t know where his qualifying pace has gone and that he’s looking forward to the end of his Mercedes career ahead of the Qatar Grand Prix.

George Russell qualified on the front row for both the Sprint and Sunday’s main race in Qatar, on each occasion being within a tenth of a second of the outright fastest time. Hamilton, meanwhile, was 0.4s off Russell in Sprint qualifying, and then slightly further off on Saturday night, and says he doesn’t believe it’s a lack of ability that is causing the gap.

“Well, I mean I’m slow out there,” Hamilton said. “I’m half a second off my teammate in the same car… It’s been happening all year.”

“I know I’ve still got it, it’s just the car won’t go any faster. I definitely know I’ve got it still. It’s not a question in my mind. Looking forward to the end.

“We [pretty much] fixed the balance, so it was much better… [It was] a pretty straightforward session. The car was feeling pretty decent.”

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Hamilton — who will make his final start for Mercedes at next weekend’s Abu Dhabi Grand Prix — also told Sky Sports that he felt his laps in qualifying were competitive at the time, before he completed the attempts and saw the standings.

“I can’t explain why I am half a second off my teammate,” he said. “It’s never happened in my career. I can’t explain that. What I can say is that the car felt generally fine for me. There’s not really much more I can add. I’ve given it absolutely everything and the laps are generally feeling good but I come across the line and it’s just slow.”

The seven-time world champion was more competitive in the first part of the Sprint before fading later on and losing out to Charles Leclerc, but he suggests he was balancing the risk and reward for a race that pays far fewer points than the grand prix.

“It was all right; it was [a fair fight], nice and close,” he said. “I didn’t defend; I should have defended but I didn’t. He was a bit quicker than me and probably going to come by anyways. If I’m in the same position again tomorrow, I’ll put more of a fight up, for sure.”

Verstappen stripped of Qatar pole for qualifying incident with Russell

Max Verstappen has lost pole position at the Qatar Grand Prix after being handed a grid penalty for an incident with George Russell during qualifying. Russell complained that Verstappen drove in a “super dangerous” manner when he slowed to create a …

Max Verstappen has lost pole position at the Qatar Grand Prix after being handed a grid penalty for an incident with George Russell during qualifying.

Russell complained that Verstappen drove in a “super dangerous” manner when he slowed to create a gap before his final attempt in Q3, with Russell having to take evasive action and nearly running into the back of the Red Bull. Russell proceeded to overtake Verstappen and start his lap, with the stewards investigating the Dutchman for “driving unnecessarily slowly.”

Following a lengthy wait, Verstappen was handed a one-place grid penalty three hours after the end of qualifying, demoting him to second place and promoting Russell to pole. The stewards explained the usual three-place grid drop was not imposed because Russell could clearly see Verstappen, and neither driver was on a push lap at the time.

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“Car No. 1 was on a different preparation strategy to that of car No. 63,” the stewards’ decision read. “Car No. 1 was well outside of the delta and the driver of car No. 1 explained he had let Cars Nos. 4 and 14 past. The driver of car No. 63 claimed that he had adhered to the delta and did not expect car No. 1 to be on the racing line. He stated that if a car was going slow in a high speed corner, it should not be on the racing line.

“The stewards regard this case as a complicated one in that clearly car No. 1 did not comply with the race director’s event notes and clearly was driving, in our determination, unnecessarily slowly considering the circumstances.

“It was obvious the driver of car No. 1 was attempting to cool his tires. He also could see car No. 63 approaching as he looked in his mirror multiple times whilst on the small straight between Turns 11 and 12.

“Unusually, this incident occurred when neither car was on a push lap. Had car No. 63 been on a push lap, the penalty would have most likely been the usual three grid position penalty, however in mitigation of penalty, it was obvious that the driver of car No. 63 had clear visibility of car No. 1 and that neither car was on a push lap.”

The penalty also carries one penalty point, giving Verstappen six for the 12-month period. His last pole position in Belgium also came with a grid penalty for exceeding power unit components, meaning Verstappen’s last official pole remains the Austrian Grand Prix in June.

Russell predicts exciting Qatar GP after McLaren’s ‘infuriating’ Sprint race tactics

George Russell is expecting an exciting Qatar Grand Prix starting alongside Max Verstappen on the front row, after being infuriated by McLaren’s defensive teamwork in the Sprint. Verstappen secured pole position ahead of Russell by just 0.055s on …

George Russell is expecting an exciting Qatar Grand Prix starting alongside Max Verstappen on the front row, after being infuriated by McLaren’s defensive teamwork in the Sprint.

Verstappen secured pole position ahead of Russell by just 0.055s on Saturday night, turning around what had been a tough weekend up to that point as he was uncompetitive in the Sprint. Russell also started on the front row in the shorter race but saw the McLaren drivers work together to keep him at bay, and he wants a different type of battle on Sunday.

“I’m just excited,” Russell said. “Hopefully we can have a proper race rather than this team orders stuff. It’s going to be a good race. I think we’ll all be going for it.

“It’s actually great that Max is in the mix as well. I was really surprised at their turnaround because they looked really off the pace yesterday, off the pace this morning. And obviously they were both in Q3 and Max on pole, so I think we’ve got a good race on our hands.”

Oscar Piastri got past Russell at the start of the Sprint before leader Lando Norris give Piastri DRS for the majority of the race, helping defend from Russell on the pit straight. Russell says the approach was understandable but did not provide a good spectacle in his opinion.

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“It was obviously so frustrating every lap, Lando backing up, giving Oscar the DRS. I understand why they did that. But when you’re out here, you’re fighting, you want to give it everything, and you want to put a race on for the fans, it was just pretty infuriating. But nevertheless, it was P3 and this afternoon is going to be the important one.”

Russell was also critical of some of Piastri’s defensive driving in the Sprint and believes he could have fought for victory to back up his win in Las Vegas last weekend.

“Obviously, we went wheel-to-wheel and into Turn 1 on one of the laps,” he said. “I was on the inside and he closed the door pretty aggressively. We made contact. We were lucky to both stay in the race there, and then a few laps later I committed to the inside and he pulled across pretty late. When you’re doing, you know, 330kph, 320kph into Turn 1, and there’s a big speed difference and there’s a closing of the door so late, it’s pretty sketchy.

“But it’s just the Sprint. I take a lot of positives from the result because I think if Lando wasn’t being a team player, I think we’d have got past Oscar and could have had a good fight with Lando.”

Verstappen’s Qatar GP pole turnaround ‘a miracle’ for Red Bull

Max Verstappen described his pole position at the Qatar Grand Prix as “a miracle” after he managed to bounce back from a poor Sprint race. Red Bull was not competitive in the Sprint as Verstappen finished eighth and was unable to catch Nico …

Max Verstappen described his pole position at the Qatar Grand Prix as “a miracle” after he managed to bounce back from a poor Sprint race.

Red Bull was not competitive in the Sprint as Verstappen finished eighth and was unable to catch Nico Hulkenberg over the shorter race distance, leading him to say he needed a miracle to be competitive in qualifying. However, the four-time world champion was in the mix at the front of the field throughout Saturday night’s session and took pole by 0.055s from George Russell on his final lap.

“I mean, it couldn’t have been worse [in the Sprint] so we just looked at it,” Verstappen said. “It’s not all super clear, but we’re like, well, we have to go and try this direction. We put it on the car and it worked.

“There are a lot of people back at the factory analyzing a lot of stuff already throughout the whole weekend. But at the end of the day, you have to make the decisions on track if you want to do it or not. [The] simulator is running in the background as well, and yeah, a miracle happened!

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“I did think that maybe we could improve the car a little bit, but not like this, that’s for sure.

“It just felt a bit more hooked up on entry, mid-corner, like everything that was bad before improved quite a lot. I felt it straight away from lap one that it all just felt a bit more consistent. That’s exactly what we needed to be a bit more competitive.”

Despite the step forward, Verstappen says the race performance in the Sprint was so poor that he is still not certain of how competitive Red Bull will be on Sunday.

“It’s still a bit of a question mark,” he said. “I did feel that yesterday we were not too far off in qualifying, and then I felt like we were quite far off in the Sprint. So this is great, to be on pole, but I’m not sure yet if it’s going to be enough to really be the outright fastest, but we’ll find out tomorrow.”

Verstappen rebounds with Qatar GP pole

Max Verstappen is poised to start the Qatar Grand Prix from pole position – his first since June’s Austrian Grand Prix – after edging George Russell to top spot in Lusail. The Dutchman, however, in under investigation for traveling too slowly on a …

Max Verstappen is poised to start the Qatar Grand Prix from pole position — his first since June’s Austrian Grand Prix — after edging George Russell to top spot in Lusail. The Dutchman, however, in under investigation for traveling too slowly on a preparation lap and appearing to impede Russell, who was also preparing to set a fast lap. The “super dangerous” incident, as the Mercedes driver described it, could yet incur the four-time champion a grid penalty.

Russell had held provisional pole after the first laps of Q3, but the qualifying session ended in unusual conditions, with most drivers struggling to improve with their final laps as grip suddenly appeared to desert the circuit.

Russell completed his final tour without improving his time, a slow middle sector undermining his effort. That left him vulnerable to Verstappen, who was only 0.045s behind him in the order. The Red Bull Racing driver, revitalized after changes made in the hours following his lackluster Sprint race, was one of the few drivers to find meaningful gains, improving by 0.1s to move into pole position.

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“Crazy,” he said. “Honestly, I also didn’t expect that, but well done to the team to give me a car that feels a bit more connected.

“Once the car’s a bit more together, you can also push harder. It felt a lot better out there. I hope of course it lasts tomorrow in the race — I don’t know that yet.”

Russell — for whom second place is his third consecutive front row start in a grand prix, said his 0.55s defeat and failure to improve could have been down to the incident with Verstappen on a preparation lap that sent him off the road to avoid crashing with the slow-moving Red Bull Racing car.

“I ended up going through the gravel,” he said. “It felt like the floor was scraping through the curb and the gravel. Maybe that’s why we didn’t improve, I don’t know.”

McLaren, fresh from one-two in the Sprint earlier in the evening, locked out the second row, Lando Norris 0.252s off pole and 0.057s ahead of Oscar Piastri.

“Not the position we were hoping for after yesterday and today but the maximum we could do for sure,” Norris said. “I was pretty happy with the lap, just not quick enough compared to the others.”

Charles Leclerc qualified fifth ahead of Lewis Hamilton in sixth. Carlos Sainz was seventh fastest but faces an investigation of his own for being released unsafely from pit lane ahead of Hamilton.

Fernando Alonso set just one representative flying lap in Q3 to qualify eighth ahead of Sergio Perez, who bounced back from his bottom-five knockout in Sprint qualifying for his third top-10 appearance in the last six races.

Kevin Magnussen completed the top 10 for Haas. Pierre Gasly missed out on what would have been his fourth Q3 appearance in the last five grands prix by just 0.012s, incidentally saving Perez from another embarrassing top-10 miss.

Zhou Guanyu led teammate Valtteri Bottas to 12th and 13th in Sauber’s first double-Q2 appearance of the season since the Spanish Grand Prix and only its second of the season. It was also the second consecutive grand prix for which Zhou outqualified Bottas and just the third time all year.

Yuki Tsunoda was knocked out of qualifying 14th ahead of Lance Stroll in 15th.

Alex Albon will line up 16th after falling 0.026s short of a berth in Q2. Liam Lawson, who qualified 10th for the sprint, followed in 17th.

Nico Hulkenberg was a surprise Q1 knockout just hours after scoring two points for seventh in the Sprint. Radio from the Haas pit wall subsequently suggested the German didn’t have full battery deployment for being in the wrong state-of-charge mode.

Franco Colapinto qualified 19th, one up from his sprint qualifying result but now just 0.204s slower than his teammate, while Esteban Ocon qualified his un-upgraded Alpine last and 0.871s slower than teammate Gasly, who is benefitting from using a new front wing this weekend.

Norris defied team to hand Piastri Qatar Sprint victory

Lando Norris was told by his McLaren team that he shouldn’t try to let Oscar Piastri by as he relinquished victory at the end of the Sprint at the Qatar Grand Prix. Exiting the final corner, Norris slowed and moved to the inside to give Piastri a …

Lando Norris was told by his McLaren team that he shouldn’t try to let Oscar Piastri by as he relinquished victory at the end of the Sprint at the Qatar Grand Prix.

Exiting the final corner, Norris slowed and moved to the inside to give Piastri a clear run at the line, returning the favor for his teammate handing him victory in the Sprint at the Sao Paulo Grand Prix. Norris then revealed he had been told by the team not to switch the positions because George Russell was too close behind Piastri, but he ignored that request.

“It was probably a bit closer than what I was wanting, but I planned to do it since Brazil,” Norris said. “Just what I thought was best, probably a bit sketchy, the team told me not to do it, but I thought I could get away with it and we did.

“So honestly I don’t mind, I’m not here to win Sprint races, I’m here to win races and a championship — but that’s not gone to plan. So I did the best we could and I look forward to tomorrow.”

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Norris says he had only told his race engineer that he planned on giving the position up if he had the opportunity, and he believes few other teammates would work in a similar way.

“It wasn’t something that was really discussed. I didn’t have to do it if I didn’t want to,” he said. “I told my engineer that I would do it so he was the main one that probably knew about it. I told him before the race if we have a bit of a gap and we’re first and second, and then I would try and do it. 

“So he knew and he was telling me not to do it because I think the gap to George was probably a bit too fine for their liking. But Oscar did his part in trying to help me get closer to Max in the championship and give that opportunity a go.

“I deserved that right to have a chance and that’s how we have to work as a team, when one of us has that opportunity. And I returned the favor today.

“I don’t think any of us are proud of necessarily winning a Sprint race or we’re also not too unhappy on giving up a Sprint race win. But we work together well as a team, and I think that’s probably one of our biggest strengths over everyone is how well we work together.

“I don’t think any other team would do such a thing and help each other as much as we’ve done this year for one another. It’s our strength, and we’ll continue to do that.”