There’s a trick you can use to tell whether you’re watching this year’s Qatar Grand Prix or the 2023 edition.
If the drivers look mostly dry, if their cheeks are their normal skin tone, if they’re able to stand up and speak in full sentences, then you can be sure you’re watching the 2024 event.
The difference eight weeks in the calendar has made for Qatar is remarkable. Whereas last year’s weekend was held in borderline dangerously hot and humid conditions — several drivers needed medical attention after the race — this year it’s almost cold, with the mercury sliding to just 18°C during sprint qualifying.
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And with the return to normal weather came a return to F1’s usual form guide, with McLaren back on top of the order and Red Bull Racing struggling for balance.
But the mixed fortunes of Mercedes and Ferrari were far more interesting ahead of not only Saturday’s sprint race but for Sunday’s main event too.
McLAREN ON TRACK FOR TITLE — BUT WILL PIASTRI BE REPAID A FAVOUR?
“We wanted to come back after Vegas,” Norris said after taking his second sprint pole of the year. “Job done for today, so we’re happy.”
The difference between McLaren’s speed in Las Vegas and Qatar couldn’t be starker, with Norris bossing sprint qualifying, topping all three segments, to remind the sport that last week’s disappointment was only ever going to be an aberration at F1’s biggest outlier of a track.
But it’s more than just pride on the line this weekend.
McLaren is targeting its first constructors championship in a quarter of a century. The trophy is now so close that McLaren CEO Zak Brown has reportedly rearranged his schedule to be on the ground on Sunday in Lusail to ensure he doesn’t miss the drought-breaking achievement should it happen.
With a 24-point advantage over Ferrari, a perfect weekend — one-two in the sprint and in the grand prix with the fastest lap — will guarantee the title regardless of what the Italian team achieves.
It of course can still win without a flawless performance too.
Things are off to an almost perfect start, with Norris on pole and Oscar Piastri lining up third on the sprint grid. There was just 0.159 seconds splitting them despite the Australian’s scrappier lap. He may also have been carrying minor floor damage after a heavy run over the kerbs and gravel earlier in the session.
George Russell splits them, the Briton just 0.061 seconds off pole — “It’s probably a bit closer than what I would’ve like, honestly,” Norris said — but race pace estimates still have McLaren ahead for the sprint.
“We’re still hopeful we can get a good race in” Norris said. “We want to sore maximum points from a constructor point of view. Even though the points are minimal, and one position is a point, we still want to go out and get point we can. That’s our task for tomorrow.”
Piastri was “reasonably happy” with his result and has been on the pace so far this weekend despite a scrappy qualifying. A winner here last year, he should be well placed to make it a one-two finish if the estimates of race pace bear out.
If that were to come to pass, it would raise an interesting question.
Would Piastri be swapped into the lead if Norris were leading a comfortable one-two?
The Australian was forced to give up a sprint win in Brazil to benefit Norris’s doomed championship hopes. With the drivers title decided and only the constructors championship up for grabs, there’s no points-related reason not to consider it to repay the favour.
It would be just reward for Piastri playing the team game and having made the ultimate sacrifice of giving up a victory, even if it was just a sprint race.
Of course McLaren must get itself into that position first. But if it’s controlling the race, expect some interesting discussions on the pit wall.
HAMILTON ‘DEFINITELY NOT FAST ANYMORE’ AS RUSSELL TARGETS VICTORY
Lewis Hamilton sounds just about ready to pack it up for the year.
Despite a strong first half of the campaign comprising two victories, including his home drought-breaker, the seven-time champion has had a rough time of things since the mid-season break.
He’s been outqualified by teammate George Russell at every weekend bar one — the Singapore Grand Prix — and at every sprint to tip his season-long head-to-head qualifying record to 17-5, or 22-6 including sprints.
Across sprint and grand prix qualifying sessions he’s on average 0.202 seconds slower that his teammate.
For most prolific qualifier in Formula 1 history, it’s a dire series of results.
After his latest disappointment in Qatar, qualifying seventh — five places and 0.399 seconds behind Russell — Hamilton found himself all out of excuses.
“Same as every other qualifying — not that great,” he said, summing up his night. “I’m just slow, same as every weekend.
“Car felt relatively decent — no issues. Not really much more to say.
“I’m definitely not fast anymore.”
It was a breathtaking admission.
With two rounds to go before he draws a line under his Mercedes tenure — both the glittering successes but also the toil of the last three seasons — it gave the strong impression that he’d be ready to wrap things up now if he could, this coming only a few weeks after briefly considering calling time on the season thanks to his woeful weekend in Brazil.
It’s not just the gap to Russell that makes this a difficult result to parse. It’s the way Russell is so much more confident in the car.
The telemetry tells the story.
The highlight of the Lusail International Circuit is the triple-apex turns 12-13-14 at the start of the final sector.
Russell exhibits remarkable bravery through this part of the track.
He’s able to keep his foot totally planted through turn 13, and not only that, but he does it in eighth gear when no-one else is clicking out of seventh.
Neither Hamilton nor even pole-getter Norris could achieve the same through that complex.
He then takes another big step away from Hamilton through the left-handed turn 15, which he gets through with only a lift of the throttle. Hamilton has to brake on approach, so lacking in confidence is he.
The combined effect is that Hamilton loses a whopping 0.259 seconds through the final sector alone.
“Not particularly [any positives],” Hamilton said. “The positive is that the car is fast. George should be able to shoot for pole tomorrow.”
It’ll be interesting to see what Russell can achieve in the sprint too. The Briton highlighted in Las Vegas that he always believed the Mercedes car could be competitive this weekend. That’s so far proved true over a single lap, but race pace estimates place the car as far back as fourth, slowest among the frontrunners.
That estimate was wrong in Vegas, though in Qatar there’s less scope for big set-up changes between the sole hour of practice and sprint qualifying to muddy the data.
Regardless, there’s clearly potential for Mercedes to battle at the front this weekend.
WHAT HAPPENED TO FERRARI?
Ferrari made a statement by locking out the top two spots of the sole practice session, briefly turning on its head the expectation that it would struggle to be competitive this weekend.
That optimism had almost completely melted away by the end of qualifying.
Carlos Sainz and Charles Leclerc were closely matched in fourth and fifth, but they were both more than 0.25 seconds off the pace.
“This, I’ll say, is in line with what was expected,” Leclerc said. “We’re coming back to reality.
“Obviously after FP1 there were hopes we could do something better, but we didn’t.”
Ferrari is fighting to keep its title hopes alive, if not outright then within realistic reach. It’s already 24 points behind McLaren. If the cars finish the sprint where they start, that margin will grow to 30 points — just 15 short of defeat with a round remaining.
“Not great considering how important this weekend is for us,” Leclerc said.
But there is hope for the Scuderia.
In the sole practice session the Italian team used the hard tyre instead of the medium, which was favoured by almost everyone else.
A quirk of the sprint qualifying format is that drivers are obliged to use the medium tyre in SQ1 and SQ2 before switching to softs for the pole shootout.
Using the medium for the first time — on a track that was now cooler and more gripped up after the hour of practice — meant the car was slightly out of its set-up window.
But where things really went wrong was in adjusting from medium to soft. The team dialled too much understeer into the car — a killer mistake around a high-speed track like this.
The shortened SQ3 session — just eight minutes — means cars usually don’t return to pit lane. It meant both drivers just had to live with the issue, leaving plenty of time on the table.
“I think we didn’t maximise our package,” Sainz said. “Even though the lap was clean, it was just a lap with a lot of understeer in the car. I just couldn’t turn the car basically for the whole lap.
“I think tomorrow we have potential to improve a lot the car, especially on the soft tyre. That will mean hopefully we can make some steps forward.
“The good news is the car was feeling better in terms of balance than expected [in practice], and obviously the time sheets were reflecting that.”
Race pace estimates still place Ferrari at the top of the order, through the drivers sound pessimistic. But once the sprint race is done, the team will have around three hours to make set-up changes for grand prix qualifying.
If it can get them right, it might be back in the fight for when the big points are on offer on Sunday.
PÉREZ STRUGGLES AGAIN AS LAWSON EXCELS
Sergio Pérez said after the Las Vegas Grand Prix that he and his side of the garage immediately understood the problem that left him out of qualifying in 16th.
The lessons were presumably put into practice for sprint qualifying this weekend. He qualified 16th again.
It’s the first time he’s been knocked out of sprint qualifying in the bottom five but the third time in a row he’s failed to make it through to SQ3.
His run is even worse if you include his grand prix qualifying results.
Since the Singapore Grand Prix he’s qualified inside the top 10 in any format just once — for the grand prix in Austin.
He’s been knocked out in the bottom five three times and knocked out between 11th and 15th a further four times.
This weekend, though, he can point to at least one ameliorating factor.
His final lap in SQ1 was compromised by Leclerc, who was starting a flying lap at the same time. The Monegasque was side by side with the Mexican down the front straight and attempted to pass down the inside. Pérez ran a little wide but moved back onto the racing line, forcing Leclerc to abandon the lap.
It left Pérez with a first sector 0.115 seconds slower than his previous personal best. He improved around the rest of the lap.
He was knocked out by just 0.013 seconds.
But an asterisk on this particular bad qualifying result does nothing to negate his body of bad qualifying results, and while it was only for a sprint race, every session counts with his career on the line.
Of equal importance, though, is how his potential usurpers fared.
The good news for Pérez is that Yuki Tsunoda — who has become increasingly vociferous about Red Bull Racing’s apparent lack of interest in him despite his strong season — qualified one place behind him, in 17th.
Franco Colapinto — who is running an un-upgraded Williams car after his Las Vegas crash, costing him speed — will start the sprint last.
But Liam Lawson, at a track he struggled to master last year and off the back of a tough weekend in Las Vegas, starred. He cracked the top 10 and would have qualified ninth had his final lap not been deleted for track limits. He’ll start a still commendable 10th.
It puts him within range of a point for eighth place — a position that by rights should be Pérez’s given the quality of the car underneath him.
The Mexican will need a big Saturday to make up for this one.
