The Sprint Race and Qualifying are on tap Saturday, with the Constructor’s Championship at stake.
LUSAIL, Qatar—While Lando Norris will not win the World Drivers’ Championship, his Friday evening sprint qualifying performance takes his McLaren team one step closer to claiming the 2024 Constructor’s Championship. The Briton took the quickest time, 1:21:012, ahead of Mercedes George Russell, with McLaren teammate Oscar Piastri taking third.
Norris later said he was pleased with the outcome but realized that the circuit creates quite a challenge.
Lando Norris: It is tough here because it is so quick. It feels like the quickest circuit of the year. The final sector feels like you are hanging on. But great qualifying today, wildly to bounce back from where we were in Vegas. We came here to get the pole and got that job done today.
McLaren’s main opposition to winning the championship is not with Red Bull but with Ferrari. Carlos Sainz and Charles Leclerc finished fourth and fifth in their Ferrari, with the latter coming off the best time in the earlier practice session. As for Red Bull, Max Verstappen, fresh off his fourth world title last week, took sixth place in his Red Bull, with Mercedes Lewis Hamilton next in seventh. The next three finishers were Alpine’s Pierre Gasly in eighth, with Haas F1’s Nico Hulkenberg in ninth and RB’s Liam Lawson taking tenth.
A double dose of excitement will come on Saturday evening as the sprint race and qualifying will occur on the same day. ESPN2 will televise only the sprint race, beginning at 8:55 AM Eastern.
