{"id":312933,"date":"2025-11-28T20:10:08","date_gmt":"2025-11-28T20:10:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/312933\/"},"modified":"2025-11-28T20:10:08","modified_gmt":"2025-11-28T20:10:08","slug":"max-verstappen-lando-norris-in-damage-limitation-mode-for-sprint-race-at-qatar-gp","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/312933\/","title":{"rendered":"Max Verstappen, Lando Norris in damage limitation mode for sprint race at Qatar GP"},"content":{"rendered":"

DOHA, Qatar — Max Verstappen and Lando Norris will both be in damage limitation mode for Saturday\u2019s sprint after Oscar Piastri\u2019s surprising pole position added another unexpected twist in F1\u2019s three-way title fight.<\/p>\n

Piastri ended his long run of rotten form with a timely return to pole<\/a> in Qatar, catching a massive snap of his car during the crucial final lap to beat George Russell to pole.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s been a good day,\u201d said Piastri, who had not had a win since August\u2019s Dutch Grand Prix, which was also his last F1 win. \u201cI think from the first lap we\u2019ve looked competitive and we made some good adjustments into qualifying and everything felt good. I think the last lap was pretty solid, except for one pretty big moment, but clearly it was good enough still. So I\u2019m happy. It\u2019s nice to be back on top, so hopefully we can keep it rolling.\u201d<\/p>\n

Norris, who leads both Piastri and Verstappen by 24 points ahead of the penultimate round of the season, ran wide at the end of his own lap to spoil his own chance of lining up on pole position.<\/p>\n

Verstappen could only manage sixth.<\/p>\n

Norris still appears the strong favourite for the championship and he will claim the title if he finishes third<\/a> in all of the remaining races — Saturday\u2019s sprint, Sunday\u2019s Qatar Grand Prix and the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix on Dec. 7.<\/p>\n

The British driver insisted he will still be going for it on Saturday\u2019s shortened race, where a maximum of eight points are available.<\/p>\n

Asked if he would play it safe in the sprint, Norris said: \u201cNo, of course, I\u2019m stupid to not try and win. I mean, I\u2019m here to try and win. So, I\u2019ll see what I can find overnight and see what we can do for tomorrow. It\u2019s impossible to overtake, so I think I\u2019m probably going to finish P3. But if I can at least get George off the line or something, then that\u2019s probably the most I can hope for.\u201d<\/p>\n

Verstappen struggled throughout the session, complaining to Red Bull about the balance of his car and being out-qualified by teammate Yuki Tsunoda for the first time ever.<\/p>\n

\u201cNot good from the first lap,\u201d Verstappen said after the session. \u201cJust really bad bouncing and very aggressive understeer that would shift into oversteer in high speed. Not what you want to go fast. So then you\u2019re locked in and we tried to, of course, change a few things on the wheel, but it never really worked. That made it quite tricky.\u201d<\/p>\n

Asked what he can hope for in the sprint, which is run a few hours before another qualifying session for Sunday\u2019s grand prix, he sounded pessimistic.<\/p>\n

\u201cWith this balance, tomorrow in the sprint at least, it will not be a lot of fun. So it will be more about just trying to survive, I guess, and then make some changes going into qualifying.\u201d<\/p>\n

As his two rivals bemoaned disappointing sessions, Piastri was left to celebrate an unexpected return to form after a run of form which has seen him dramatically drop out of the lead of the championship.<\/p>\n

Piastri had not taken a pole position of any kind since the Dutch Grand Prix at the end of August, which was also his last F1 victory.<\/p>\n

In the time since, he\u2019s lost the championship lead to Norris and seen Verstappen wipe out a 104-point deficit to him.<\/p>\n

When asked if Turn 1 was crucial for his title bid on Saturday, Piastri replied: \u201cYeah, exactly. That\u2019s all I can do and we\u2019ve started on the right note, so hopefully we can keep that going.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"DOHA, Qatar — Max Verstappen and Lando Norris will both be in damage limitation mode for Saturday\u2019s sprint…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":312934,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[441],"tags":[49,48,578,86971,576,577,132995,88754,82],"class_list":["post-312933","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-formula-1","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-f1","tag-f1-sports-auto-racing-league-f1","tag-formula-1","tag-formula1","tag-lando-norris-sports-auto-racing-player-player-statscom-1135155","tag-max-verstappen-sports-auto-racing-player-player-statscom-843471","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/312933","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=312933"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/312933\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/312934"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=312933"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=312933"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=312933"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}