![](\"https:\/\/www.grandprix.com\/display\/photo?photo_caption=Oscar+Piastri&photo_copyright=%C2%A9+McLaren&photo_url=https%3A%2F%2Fphotos.grandprix.com%2Fjpeg%2Fraces%2Fpmex25%2Fsun%2Fmcl%2Fpiastri10-lg.jpg\")
<\/a><\/p>\nOscar Piastri set the early benchmark for Formula 1\u2019s Qatar Grand Prix weekend, leading McLaren team-mate Lando Norris by just 0.058s in the lone practice session at the floodlit Losail circuit. <\/p>\n
With the 2025 season approaching its conclusion and Qatar hosting the final sprint event of the year, teams treated the single hour of practice as a condensed race-weekend warm-up, completing extensive hard-tyre running before switching to softs for late qualifying simulations.<\/p>\n
Mercedes\u2019 George Russell established the first representative time, a 1m22.165s, after 20 minutes on the hard compound \u2014 a lap that stood for more than half the session. Max Verstappen briefly chased that benchmark despite reporting that his Red Bull RB21 was \u201cjumping a lot\u201d over Losail\u2019s high-speed compressions. Carlos Sainz, Alex Albon, and Isack Hadjar also featured prominently as teams ran a mix of fuel loads while gathering data for a Sunday race already locked into a two-stop strategy courtesy of Pirelli\u2019s mandated 25-lap stint limit.<\/p>\n
The McLarens initially lagged on the hard tyres. Norris, at one stage 1.6s off Piastri, wondered over team radio where the lost time had gone, while Piastri logged steady long-run laps in the 1m22.3s range. Both came alive as soon as soft tyres appeared for the final runs. Norris delivered a 1m20.982s \u2014 the first dip below 1m21s \u2014 before abandoning his second flyer. Piastri struck moments later, producing the session-defining 1m20.924s to finish practice fastest.<\/p>\n
Fernando Alonso secured third for Aston Martin with a 1m21.310s, four tenths away from Piastri, narrowly ahead of Sainz\u2019s 1m21.404s for Williams. Hadjar impressed again with a 1m21.503s in fifth, just 0.001s quicker than Verstappen\u2019s 1m21.504s. Albon followed with a 1m21.609s, while Charles Leclerc and Lance Stroll logged near-identical laps of 1m21.668s and 1m21.669s respectively. Andrea Kimi Antonelli completed the top 10 for Mercedes with a 1m21.698s after a busy 32-lap programme.<\/p>\n
Further back, Nico H\u00fclkenberg\u2019s 1m21.783s and Lewis Hamilton\u2019s 1m21.794s placed the pair 11th and 12th. Yuki Tsunoda matched that group at 1m21.796s, with Russell sliding to 14th once soft-tyre runs tightened the field. Haas duo Oliver Bearman (1m21.926s) and Esteban Ocon (1m22.096s) split the Saubers of Gabriel Bortoleto (1m21.926s) and H\u00fclkenberg. Alpine endured a more difficult hour, Pierre Gasly managing 1m22.424s while rookie Franco Colapinto ended 20th with a 1m23.529s on the hard tyre.<\/p>\n
Sprint qualifying begins at 20:30 local time.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Qatar GP 2025 NOVEMBER 28, 2025 Oscar Piastri set the early benchmark for Formula 1\u2019s Qatar Grand Prix…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":314873,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[573],"tags":[944,855,884,911,898,64,63,839,840,892,936,937,922,864,868,843,512,874,906,897,817,836,904,848,845,826,837,813,835,816,867,876,894,841,842,833,908,887,860,909,930,914,939,886,934,832,834,858,941,875,861,850,870,854,900,866,846,880,943,889,878,823,881,863,933,935,910,859,913,844,923,927,896,926,883,938,932,824,901,871,852,849,888,872,891,915,822,838,918,916,857,879,893,869,931,885,924,847,882,851,865,925,928,942,929,85,920,921,902,862,919,917,873,940,905,912,895,853,856,877,819,903,899,907,890],"class_list":["post-314872","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-formula-1","tag-abu-dhabi","tag-adrian-sutil","tag-albers","tag-alesi","tag-ammermuller","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-autoracing","tag-autos","tag-badoer","tag-bahrain","tag-barcelona","tag-benetton","tag-bruno-senna","tag-button","tag-cars","tag-china","tag-david-coulthard","tag-davidson","tag-doornbos","tag-f1","tag-f1-racing","tag-fauzy","tag-felipe-massa","tag-fernando-alonso","tag-ferrari","tag-fia","tag-formula-1","tag-formula-one","tag-formula1","tag-giancarlo-fisichella","tag-gilles-villeneuve","tag-glock","tag-grand-prix","tag-grandprix","tag-grandprix-com","tag-hakkinen","tag-hamilton","tag-heikki-kovalainen","tag-hill","tag-hockenheim","tag-honda","tag-hungary","tag-ide","tag-indianapolis","tag-inside-f1","tag-insidef1-com","tag-jaime-alguesuari","tag-japan","tag-jaques-villeneuve","tag-jarno-trulli","tag-jenson-button","tag-juan-pablo-montoya","tag-kamui-kobayashi","tag-karthikeyan","tag-karun-chandhok","tag-kimi-raikkonen","tag-klien","tag-korea","tag-kovalainen","tag-kubica","tag-lewis-hamilton","tag-liuzzi","tag-lucas-di-grassi","tag-magny-cours","tag-malaysia","tag-mansell","tag-mark-webber","tag-mclaren","tag-michael-schumacher","tag-minardi","tag-monaco","tag-montagny","tag-monte-carlo","tag-monteiro","tag-montreal","tag-monza","tag-motorsport","tag-nakajima","tag-nick-heidfeld","tag-nico-hulkenberg","tag-nico-rosberg","tag-paffett","tag-pedro-de-la-rosa","tag-piquet","tag-prost","tag-racing","tag-racingcars","tag-red-bull","tag-renault","tag-robert-kubica","tag-rosberg","tag-rossiter","tag-rubens-barrichello","tag-san-marino","tag-sato","tag-sauber","tag-schumacher","tag-scott-speed","tag-sebastian-vettel","tag-sebastien-buemi","tag-senna","tag-silverstone","tag-singapore","tag-spa","tag-sports","tag-spyker","tag-super-aguri","tag-sutil","tag-timo-glock","tag-toro-rosso","tag-toyota","tag-trulli","tag-turkey","tag-valles","tag-verstappen","tag-vettel","tag-vitaly-petrov","tag-vitantonio-liuzzi","tag-webber","tag-williams","tag-winkelhock","tag-wurz","tag-yamamoto","tag-zonta"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/314872","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=314872"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/314872\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/314873"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=314872"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=314872"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=314872"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}