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Only a couple of hours separated practice from sprint qualifying around Qatar but the competitive picture altered quite dramatically.
McLaren went from distant Ferrari chasers to the class of the field – and George Russell also leapfrogged past the red cars to plant his Mercedes on the front row, splitting the McLarens.
Carlos Sainz has for weeks been talking about how Qatar’s fast, long corners would punish the Ferrari. Its only real weakness is that it cannot maintain good downforce on the front in long steady-state corners – the sort which comprise the majority of the Losail lap.
But it didn’t look that way in FP1 - when on the dusty circuit the challenge was all about rear stability. Especially through Turns 10 and 15, where a wicked crosswind played its tricks.
Crosswinds around a fast corner track can be very confidence-sapping. The Ferrari, with its relatively weak front in these long corners, actually had a nicer balance than the very squirrely McLarens, Mercs and Red Bulls. Plus, Charles Leclerc seemed on fire.
But Leclerc's advantage of almost 0.4s over Norris wasn’t just about balance. Ferrari was running lighter. Around a track where each 10kg is worth 0.4s, it suggested that actually - even with that nicer balance - the Ferrari was probably only as fast as the more demanding McLaren.
With a cooler track temperature into qualifying and an ever-more rubbered-in surface Norris aced SQ1, SQ2 and SQ3.
He’d found the Turn 15 gravel strip in SQ1 (but not as hard as team-mate Oscar Piastri, whose floor damage from that may have accounted for the 0.15s he trailed Norris by at the end) but as the track grip came up the McLaren’s front end responded better than the Ferrari’s and the changes they’d made since FP1 in anticipating that came into their own.
Essentially, as the track became more front-limited, the Ferrari’s long corner trait which had been an aid in FP1 became a liability and Sainz in the faster Ferrari, could manage only fourth, 0.269s adrift of pole.
“FP1 was beyond our expectations,” said fifth-fastest Leclerc. “This [qualifying] was more in line with them. We’re coming back to reality.”
“I never read too much in FP1 because of fuel loads,” said Sainz, after losing his first SQ3 run to being too close to Max Verstappen. “There was a lot of understeer in the car. I couldn’t turn it for the whole lap.”
Aside from its super-fast corners, what also characterises this track is its smoothness. Fast corners, smooth surface, cool track temperatures: that’s a dream Mercedes recipe.
“The car felt great here,” said Russell - who trailed Norris by just 0.06s, the Merc loving running its belly along the ground for most of the lap.
Russell might have gone one better but for a bit of AI in the ERS software. There’s a self-learning element in deployment - and when Russell, on his final lap, managed to take Turn 14 in eighth rather than seventh for the first time it confused the system into clipping the power as he exited. Given that Russell was the only one to get a better time on his second attack lap on the same tyres (only one set permitted in the SQ sessions), there may well have been a potential pole in the car.
Lewis Hamilton, around 0.4s adrift in seventh, didn’t seem quite as confident through the fast turns and lost further time out of the last corner, too.
Looking at the laps of Norris and Russell, as a generalisation the McLaren is faster through the long corners for most of the lap and the Mercedes quicker down the straights between them. But as they enter the truly fast final sector Russell’s commitment is impressive. He’s in eighth gear to Norris's seventh on the entry to Turn 12 and keeps it nailed in top until a down change to seventh for Turn 15. It gains him 0.15s on Norris.
“I’m not - but some other cars are close to flat through there,” said Norris. "I struggle to do that. It’s a very demanding lap, so physical. The tyres don’t feel in at the beginning of the lap but you gain confidence through the lap. We made some good improvements from earlier, too.”
Russell feels he can make a race of it in the sprint, though. “They’ve got a championship battle and we have nothing to lose,” he points out, probably as part of his strategy.
Verstappen went sixth-quickest, reporting that the Red Bull just didn’t have the necessary rear stability into the slower corners. Its high-speed performance was excellent, though, and he was consistently the quickest through the final sector comprising the seventh-gear blast of Turns 12-15.
The facility for the teams to make changes to their cars between tomorrow’s sprint race and grand prix qualifying make it possible we’ll see a further reset. But for now, McLaren looks in good shape to build upon its narrow lead in the constructors' championship.
