Max Verstappen secures Qatar Grand Prix pole position

Max Verstappen secured pole position for the Qatar Grand Prix on Friday. Here’s what you need to know:

Lando Norris set a time fast enough to land him P2, but because he exceeded track limits, his lap time was deleted. He fell to tenth.
Sergio Pérez was knocked out of Q2, making it the eighth time this season he hasn’t made it to Q3. He did have a lap that would’ve been good enough to advance in qualifying, but he exceeded track limits at Turn 5.
As pressure continues to mount around Logan Sargeant, he was knocked out of Q1 by teammate Alex Albon, just 0.092 seconds separating the two.

Provisional qualifying results

Max Verstappen (Red Bull)
George Russell (Mercedes)
Lewis Hamilton (Mercedes)
Fernando Alonso (Aston Martin)
Charles Leclerc (Ferrari)
Oscar Piastri (McLaren)
Pierre Gasly (Alpine)
Esteban Ocon (Alpine)
Valtteri Bottas (Alfa Romeo)
Lando Norris (McLaren)
Yuki Tsunoda (AlphaTauri)
Carlos Sainz (Ferrari)
Sergio Pérez (Red Bull)
Alex Albon (Williams)
Nico Hülkenberg (Haas)
Logan Sargeant (Williams)
Lance Stroll (Aston Martin)
Liam Lawson (AlphaTauri)
Kevin Magnussen (Haas)
Zhou Guanyu (Alfa Romeo)

Follow The Athletic’s live coverage of the Qatar Grand Prix.

So who is P3 now?

Verstappen’s question moments before the post-qualifying FIA news conference is a valid one after track limit infringements cost the McLaren duo of Norris and Oscar Piastri (among others) key positions. Hamilton felt “Lando should be up here.”

Norris’ final flying lap landed him in P2, but with exceeding track limits during that run, his time was deleted, dropping him to P10. When Russell wrapped up his on-track interview, he looked for Norris, but Piastri was there instead, saying, “I swapped out with the other one.” And it was mid-interview that the rookie found out he had been dropped to P6 for the same reason as his teammate, which led to Lewis Hamilton being in the top three.

“It is very challenging out there. You got to be very, very precise. We’re talking sort of millimeters sometimes,” Russell said. “I’ve had no track limits, but two races ago I crashed into the wall and lost the podium.”

Verstappen pointed out how easy it is to exceed track limits and why it’s not necessarily a big issue when Formula One goes to circuits like Suzuka in Japan. The Red Bull driver said, “I think why don’t we really see trek limits in, for example, Suzuka is because it’s old school. If you go off, there’s immediate gravel. Of course, already in some places, Suzuka, you have these like double curbs, and there might be track limits. But in the older places, which they haven’t touched, you never talk about track limits.

“I would always prefer to see that kind of style of racing. But of course, some places we share with bikes, and they like a bit more runoff. We always have to try and find a compromise.”

Lusail’s impact on the drivers

The Lusail International Circuit was originally created to host the country’s first MotoGP event, and F1 didn’t compete here until 2021. It’s a fast and twisty track with mostly medium and high-speed corners, and when drivers are trying to extract the maximum, it can be easy to exceed the limits, particularly with the grip questions between the sand and the resurfacing of the tarmac. Pietro Fittipaldi said on F1 TV there’s “a bit of a snowball effect.”

“The problem is like once you start getting one track limits, another one, your lap starts getting deleted in qualifying. And it’s you know, that pressure starts adding on and unfortunately, they just couldn’t complete it and both (Norris) and Oscar couldn’t get a lap together in Q3 there and maximize the package that they had.”

With it being a sprint weekend, the track limits conversation will likely continue into the sprint shootout and sprint race on Saturday. Hamilton made a fair point about the curbs around the track: “When you go beyond them, you lose time. So it shouldn’t be the white line.”