Piastri dominates sprint race as Norris beats Verstappen to third

McLaren’s Oscar Piastri has claimed the Qatar Grand Prix sprint win ahead of George Russell, with Lando Norris holding off Max Verstappen for third.

The 19-lap sprint on Doha’s twisty Losail circuit was decided at the start, with polesitter Piastri safeguarding his lead from Russell and Norris, while fourth-placed Fernando Alonso lost places to both Red Bulls of Yuki Tsunoda and Max Verstappen.

Tsunoda then left the door open for his title contending team-mate to swoop into fourth, as Verstappen set chase on Norris. But the reigning world champion soon started complaining of recurring bouncing and jumping issues, which had also plagued him in qualifying.

Either way, there was no chance for Verstappen to threaten Norris, as the dirty air on Doha’s motorcycle track ensured that cars would all fall away from each other, and the lack of pitstops ensured they were nearly guaranteed to finish in the position they held on lap 1.

The notable exception was Alonso, who made a mistake coming out of the final corner on lap 12 and saw Mercedes’ Andrea Kimi Antonelli stream past into Turn 1, snatching away sixth.

Antonelli looked set to be promoted to fifth after a five-second track limits penalty for Tsunoda, but a late track limits penalty for the Italian rookie reversed that impending position change. Behind seventh-placed Alonso, Williams driver Carlos Sainz claimed the final point in eighth, easily holding off Isack Hadjar and Alex Albon.

Charles Leclerc lost out by dropping from ninth to 13th early on, while Ferrari team-mate Lewis Hamilton was one of four cars to start from the pitlane and was stuck in 17th.

After the sprint race Norris now leads team-mate Piastri by 22 points, with Verstappen 25 points in arrears. It means that a grand prix win for Norris on Sunday would secure his maiden world title.

F1 Qatar GP – Sprint race results

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– The Autosport.com Team