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A McLaren front row lockout, Oscar Piastri ahead of Lando Norris, wasn’t exactly a surprise around the medium-fast interconnected curves of Qatar’s Lusail track. But it wasn’t pre-destined either.
George Russell, after finishing second to Piastri in the sprint race this morning, said he was expecting the Red Bull to be fastest because its fast corner performance has been the best through the season.
Max Verstappen duly qualified third – nicely putting the three title contenders in the top three spots – but it was almost 0.3s adrift of Piastri’s pole. The RB21 was vastly better than in sprint qualifying yesterday after a few set up changes. But not enough to take it into McLaren territory.
“We still didn’t have enough front grip,” related Verstappen. “But it’s not something which has suddenly arrived. It’s been a weakness all season; understeer in these long medium-high-speed corners.”
The low ride height of yesterday was an attempt at clawing something from the car which it ultimately didn’t have.
With the changes made, the car was no longer viciously bouncing, implying they’d raised the ride height, thereby surrendering a bit of downforce. But doing so would tend not only to rid the car of bouncing but also make the aero balance not as far rearwards, both of which would be helpful.
It was enough to get him ahead of George Russell’s Mercedes (which had been half-a-second ahead of him yesterday, three-hundredths behind today).
What they also did to try to further lessen that understeer was two prep laps rather than one.
As the grip of the tyres reduce, the bigger rears reduce more than the smaller fronts. Not enough to make a drastic difference, but when you’re reaching for every possible gain, the improvement of a poor balance might be worth more lap time than the small reduction in grip. So that’s why Verstappen qualified only third.
What about the competition between the other two title contenders at McLaren? There’s been almost nothing between Piastri and Norris all weekend. Piastri’s victory in the sprint, two places ahead of Norris (clawing back two of the 24 points he’d lagged behind) was just the playing out of grid order – Piastri, Russell, Norris – around a track where overtaking is super-difficult.
The actual underlying pace was too close to call and that continued into grand prix qualifying: Norris 0.08s ahead in Q1, Piastri 0.2s ahead in Q2.
On the first Q3 runs Norris shaded Piastri by 0.035s. As Norris began his final run, he felt the understeer through Turn 2 and knew there’d be no improvement on his previous best, so abandoned the lap.
There was time to get to the line to begin another lap but no point – as he didn’t have enough fuel to do two consecutive flyers. So it was all going to hang on whether Piastri could improve by enough on his second run. He did – and that was the 0.108s difference.
“My first lap was pretty good,” said Norris, “but there were places I felt I could go quicker. Turn 2 wasn’t one of them but I just caught a bit of understeer there.”
He tried to make it sound like just one of those things, but given the title stakes, it was surely a blow.
“I think overall Oscar was generating laptime slightly more comfortably than Lando,” observed Andrea Stella.
“In terms of potential Lando was as fast but if anything on this type of high-grip surface it was more for Lando to make some adaptations.
"When you have to push to find the last millisecond it can make your driving slightly less natural and maybe more prone to make mistakes. Very, very small differences but I think Lando knew Oscar would have some time in hand for the final attempt and wanted to find a few milliseconds.”
While it’s true that the McLaren has often had to give best to the Red Bull in high-speed corners, here it’s a bit more complicated than that because of the length of those corners.
The truly fast ones – Turns 12, 13, 14 - are not even corners, mere kinks. But the slightly slower ones – Turns 7, 8, 9, 10, 15 - are long, and that’s where the McLaren remains balanced and the Red Bull’s understeer bleeds lap time even with the big front wing that’s been extensively developed since its Zandvoort introduction.
Early in the lap, through Turns 1-2, the Red Bull on its extra-scrubbed fronts is faster and it’s only by the approach to T6 (the slowest turn on the track) that Piastri got himself level. But as the long corners start, so the McLaren edges ahead – and its greater speed out of those differentiating corners means it’s faster as they reach the flat-out kinks and so is faster through those too.
It's that interconnectedness of so many fast corners which just exaggerates and builds upon the initial difference.
Lusail is unique in that – and that’s a big part of why there was precious little overtaking in the sprint race.
But it’s also the reason the drivers absolutely love driving the place. Especially those who have just set pole: “It is the coolest thing ever,” said Piastri, “to push an F1 car around this track and only your right foot deciding whether it’s a corner or not a corner.
"The grip levels were higher than yesterday so it was even better. The car is in a nice window and I got comfortable with it pretty quickly. It’s hard to pick a place at which it’s bad, it’s pretty good everywhere. But it’s at its best through 13-14. These corners suit us nicely.”
Yes, through there at 190mph in seventh gear, one corner running into another, the car’s floor skittering along the ground, foot planted to the bulkhead, it’s easy to see why they love it.
