Title twist as Piastri takes fight to Lando; Verstappen in 441-day first <\/a><\/p>\nMcLaren duo disqualified | 03:26<\/p>\n
Piastri rediscovered his form to top the times ahead of Norris in Friday\u2019s opening practice session at the Qatar Grand Prix.<\/p>\n
The 24-year-old Australian, who led the championship for much of the season until he lost form and consistency, clocked a fastest lap in one minute and 20.924 seconds.<\/p>\n
Norris, who leads him and Max Verstappen by 24 points in the title race, was outpaced by 0.058 seconds in the final minutes.<\/p>\n
Fernando Alonso was third for Aston Martin ahead of Carlos Sainz of Williams, Racing Bulls\u2019 rookie Isack Hadjar and Verstappen, who was half a second off the McLaren\u2019s pace for Red Bull.<\/p>\n
Alex Albon was seventh in the second Williams ahead of Ferrari\u2019s Charles Leclerc, Lance Stroll in the second Aston Martin and teenage Italian rookie Kimi Antonelli for Mercedes.<\/p>\n
Seven-time champion Lewis Hamilton was 12th, eight-tenths off the top, in the second Ferrari and like most drivers endured a series of \u2018offs\u2019 in a difficult afternoon session at the Lusail International Circuit.<\/p>\n
Norris made a leisurely start to proceedings and after 25 minutes had run only six laps, the McLaren team having delayed both cars\u2019 entry into practice to run various safety and mechanical checks.<\/p>\n
As a result, Norris was 20th and last as the circuit floodlights came on and he began his climb through the standings reaching 11th, two places below Piastri, after half an hour.<\/p>\n
He was still eight-tenths off the pace after running wide twice and had asked his race engineer \u201cwhere can I find 1.6 seconds?\u201d Like McLaren, Ferrari were also struggling for balance and pure pace with Leclerc 14th and Hamilton 12th after 40 minutes and several off-track excursions as they battled the dusty and bumpy conditions.<\/p>\n
Norris\u2019s perseverance began to pay off as he climbed to fourth, Piastri remained 10th.<\/p>\n
Verstappen was clearly unhappy with his car and spent much of the session complaining about his set-up.<\/p>\n
\u201cEvery time I\u2019m off the throttle, the car is jumping a lot,\u201d he said before later adding that the \u201cclipping out of turn six is a disaster\u201d.<\/p>\n
With 12 minutes remaining, Oliver Bearman switched to softs in his Haas as teams began evaluating their tyre options ahead of sprint qualifying later Friday and a Grand Prix, on Sunday, in which all tyres have been restricted to a maximum of 25 laps – a rule designed for safety that will ensure a two-stop race.<\/p>\n
Hadjar, on softs, went top before Alonso and the two McLarens showed their true pace, Norris clocking 1:20.982 to go top ahead of Piastri who then replied with a lap in 1:20.924 to take the opening practice honours.<\/p>\n
For Piastri, who led the championship for 15 Grands Prix earlier in the season, it was a welcome boost ahead of Saturday\u2019s sprint race and the two remaining Grand Prix races in Qatar and Abu Dhabi.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Oscar Piastri confirmed his return to form to keep alive his title bid by claiming pole position on…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":315756,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[573],"tags":[944,113041,1724,64,63,689,4971,13275,817,845,813,816,653,174556,3875,10114,178450,1737,823,174548,825,677,178453,5242,104041,178454,94249,16280,16260,13777,178451,31307,22295,85,178452,131174,157893,178455,73582,22294,178449,12000],"class_list":["post-315755","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-formula-1","tag-abu-dhabi","tag-afternoon-session","tag-asia","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-australia-and-new-zealand","tag-carlos-sainz","tag-charles-leclerc","tag-f1","tag-fernando-alonso","tag-formula-1","tag-formula1","tag-fox-sports-news","tag-geoff-smith","tag-george-russell","tag-isack-hadjar","tag-kimi-antonelli-for-mercedes","tag-lando-norris","tag-lewis-hamilton","tag-luke-doherty","tag-max-verstappen","tag-oceania","tag-off-track-excursions","tag-oliver-bearman","tag-opening-practice","tag-opening-practice-honours","tag-opening-practice-session","tag-pole-position","tag-qatar","tag-qualifying-session","tag-qualifying-statement","tag-race-engineer","tag-series-leader","tag-sports","tag-sprint-qualifying-result","tag-sprint-wins","tag-teenage-italian-rookie","tag-three-way-title-race","tag-title-bid","tag-title-race","tag-tyre-options","tag-western-asia"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/315755","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=315755"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/315755\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/315756"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=315755"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=315755"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=315755"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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