Lando Norris Claims Qatar Sprint Qualifying Pole

Lando Norris took pole position in the Sprint Qualifying session for the Qatar Grand Prix. The McLaren driver was fastest in each of the three segments (by regulation, the first two were run on Medium tyres, the third on Soft), arriving at a time of 1’21”012, 2”766 off last year’s pole position and close to the 2021 pole (Hamilton, 1’20”827), set with a generation of cars and tyres theoretically more performing than the current one.

Norris has taken pole in the Sprint race for the third time since the format was introduced (2021), with McLaren taking the pole position to five. Max Verstappen dominates this standings with nine poles from 18 sessions. On the grid tomorrow afternoon Norris will have alongside him the Mercedes of George Russell (1’21”075), while the second row will feature the second McLaren, that of Oscar Piastri (1’21”171) and the Ferrari of Carlos Sainz (1’21”281).

The first and only free practice session saw most drivers focus on using the Medium and Soft. The Ferrari and Williams drivers were the exceptions, choosing to use one of the two available sets of Hard today: Sainz and Leclerc also ran in two sets of Medium as well as doing a qualifying simulation on the Soft while Colapinto and Albon preferred to keep all three Mediums for the rest of the weekend.

The day was characterised by a rather strong wind, even if it gradually decreased as the hours passed, and by temperatures which were rather unusual for this part of the world, about twenty degrees lower than those of last year.

Simone Berra – Pirelli Chief Engineer

“A very interesting and, in some ways, surprising day. The most significant data is the progress in terms of lap times compared to last year: huge in FP1, a little smaller but still important in SQ. Having exactly the same tyres as last year and a substantially unchanged technical regulation, such a significant drop in times can be attributed – in addition to the natural progress in the performance of this generation of cars – above all to the drop in temperatures but also to the improvement in track conditions and to the fact that, unlike 2023, in this edition of the Qatar Grand Prix, there are support competitions that run before the Formula 1 cars and make the trajectory more rubberized.

“As expected, performance improved very quickly as the cars ran, both in practice and in Sprint Qualifying. The level of graining seen so far is lower than we would have expected and performance degradation is very limited. This could push teams more towards a one-stop strategy: it will be important in this sense to check the behaviour of the tyres during tomorrow’s Sprint race, given that today few drivers made significant long runs with so much fuel on board. For the “short” race, the Medium seems like the most plausible option, although – as we already saw in 2023 – the Soft is absolutely not to be ruled out, especially with these temperatures given that the C3 has an ideal usage window with temperatures similar to those recorded today.

“From the point of view of the integrity of the tyres, the first analyses have not revealed any anomalies, confirming that the actions taken by the FIA ​​on the kerbs have had the desired effect. Obviously, it will be important to analyse the data after the Sprint, when all the cars will run continuously for a third of the length of the race on Sunday”.