McLaren driver Oscar Piastri said it was “nice to be back” as he took his first pole in a sprint race since Spa, and his first pole in any race since Zandvoort. Piastri also set a new track record at Lusail and claimed the top spot earlier in FP1 – making a perfect start to a crucial weekend. Piastri’s time of 1m20.055s on the P Zero Red soft beat the previous fastest lap of Lusail (1m20.520s) set by Red Bull driver Max Verstappen to claim pole last year.

Sprint qualifying got underway at 20:30 local time in relatively cool ambient temperatures of 22 degrees, with 25 degrees on track. There was plenty of track evolution on the smooth asphalt, which meant that the grid positions were not decided until the final seconds of SQ3. Russell briefly held pole before being demoted by Piastri, with the other McLaren of Lando Norris lining up third.

Verstappen will start from sixth, having been outqualified for the first time by his Red Bull team mate Yuki Tsunoda in fifth.

As per the sprint regulations, the drivers completed SQ1 and SQ2 respectively on two sets of medium tyres: a compound they were running for the very first time this weekend. Verstappen topped SQ1 on this tyre, while Norris was quickest in SQ2: a sign of just how closely-balanced the weekend is likely to be.

THE DAY ON TRACK
McLaren was first and second in the only F1 practice session of the weekend, which got underway at 16:30 local time, with Piastri narrowly heading his team mate on the final run with soft rubber. The teams mainly used the hard tyre for the first 45 minutes of the hour, with Russell consistently topping the time sheets on the white tyre.

SIMONE BERRA – PIRELLI CHIEF ENGINEER
“Today we definitely had better track conditions compared to last year, when the wind had deposited a lot of sand on the surface, which affected grip considerably. The current grip levels, combined with the evolution of the cars since last year, meant that the lap times were not only lower than the equivalent sessions from last year, but also than the simulations.

In the single free practice session, teams chose to get to grips with the track using the hard compound – leaving them with one set for the race on Sunday – before concluding the session on the soft.

The difference between the soft tyre and the C2 medium was clearly seen in sprint qualifying, with a performance gap of around six to seven tenths of a second, while the run plans that the teams were carrying out in FP1 make it harder to define the gap to the hard compound. However, it would appear to be smaller than the predicted simulations.

On their flying qualifying laps the drivers were able to recover performance from one lap to the next, especially on the medium tyre, thanks also to track evolution that was more pronounced with every lap.

At the end of the sessions, we saw cuts on the tread of some of the tyres caused by gravel pulled onto the circuit by cars that went off into the new gravel traps alongside the track. While the damage isn’t enough to cause any loss of pressure, we’re going to be a close eye on the condition of the tyres during tomorrow’s running."

FORMULA 2
The penultimate Formula 2 qualifying session of the season got going under the spotlights at 19:10, with MP Motorsport’s Oliver Goethe snatching his first pole in the closing moments by just 0.040s on the second. All the drivers used the red soft tyre for the session, with many drivers taking advantage of track evolution to post their best times right at the finish. Championship leader Leo Fornaroli also performed strongly for Invicta, and will line up second on the grid for Sunday’s feature race. Tomorrow’s shorter sprint race grid is formed by the top 10 in qualifying reversed, which means that Richard Verschoor makes it two poles for MP this weekend.

The nominated F2 compounds this weekend are hard and soft. Managing the hardest tyre (the only carry over from 2024) is expected to be particularly demanding: especially during warm-up. Drivers often push to the maximum to get tyres up to temperature, which however speeds up wear. With soft instead of medium nominated this year, there’s a bigger performance gap between the compounds that could lead to interesting strategy choices – but the soft cannot complete the entire sprint race distance. This takes place at night, whereas the feature race is during the day. The resulting difference in temperature will affect how teams tackle the track. In 2024, the most successful strategy was hard to medium, although Oliver Bearman ran the opposite strategy and kept the lead until the final two laps. There were several safety car periods, reducing the pit stop time loss.