{"id":314730,"date":"2025-11-29T17:11:14","date_gmt":"2025-11-29T17:11:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/314730\/"},"modified":"2025-11-29T17:11:14","modified_gmt":"2025-11-29T17:11:14","slug":"piastri-wins-sprint-race-at-qatar-gp-to-close-gap-on-f1-leader-norris-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/314730\/","title":{"rendered":"Piastri wins sprint race at Qatar GP to close gap on F1 leader Norris"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Heading into Sunday\u2019s penultimate race of the season, Norris had <a href=\"https:\/\/www.formula1.com\/en\/results\/2025\/drivers\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">396 points<\/a>, Piastri 374 and Verstappen 371.<\/p>\n<p>\t<img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/1764217328_3_indicator-big.gif\" alt=\"\"\/><\/p>\n<p>Norris needs to finish four points ahead of Piastri on Sunday to clinch his first F1 title \u2014 as long as he is also one point ahead of Verstappen, who is chasing a fifth straight F1 crown.<\/p>\n<p>There was a night-time qualifying session later Saturday for Sunday\u2019s race.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt\u2019s going to be a tough race tomorrow but it\u2019s not easy to pass around here,\u201d the 26-year-old Norris said. \u201cSo it\u2019s all about qualifying. I\u2019m looking forward to it.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Verstappen had complained of bouncing and understeer on his Red Bull on Friday, and the problems persisted.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe bouncing\u2019s still very bad,\u201d Verstappen said four laps into Saturday\u2019s sprint.<\/p>\n<p>Tsunoda finished fifth ahead of Kimi Antonelli, with both getting five-second time penalties for going off track limits more than the maximum three times.<\/p>\n<p>Aston Martin\u2019s Fernando Alonso got two points in seventh and Williams driver Carlos Sainz collected one point in eighth.<\/p>\n<p>Seven-time F1 champion Lewis Hamilton\u2019s slide continued when he placed 17th. He started from the pit lane after a rear wing change.<\/p>\n<p>Montreal\u2019s Lance Stroll was 19th for Aston Martin.<\/p>\n<p>The F1 season concludes Dec. 7 in Abu Dhabi.<\/p>\n<p>Verstappen has won the last two races in Qatar and four of the last five in Abu Dhabi.<\/p>\n<p>Piastri has not won since the final day of August at the Dutch GP and the 24-year-old Australian has <a href=\"https:\/\/www.formula1.com\/en\/results\/2025\/drivers\/OSCPIA01\/oscar-piastri\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">no podiums<\/a> in the past six F1 races, excluding Saturday\u2019s sprint.<\/p>\n<p>Verstappen\u2019s title chances increased after the <a href=\"https:\/\/apnews.com\/article\/f1-las-vegas-verstappen-norris-piastri-hamilton-5249686bd02cae1ff8b3f106390ec53b\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">disqualification of both McLaren drivers<\/a> following last Sunday\u2019s Las Vegas GP, which Verstappen won.<\/p>\n<p>Race strategy in Qatar will be harder to impose given that teams have two mandatory pit stops, a measure imposed on safety grounds due to a high risk of tire degradation at the 5.4-kilometre Lusail International Circuit.<\/p>\n<p>Pirelli tires are restricted to a maximum of 25 laps in the 57-lap race, which features high-speed corners.<\/p>\n<p>___<\/p>\n<p>AP auto racing: <a href=\"https:\/\/apnews.com\/hub\/auto-racing\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">https:\/\/apnews.com\/hub\/auto-racing<\/a><\/p>\n<p>The Associated Press<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Heading into Sunday\u2019s penultimate race of the season, Norris had 396 points, Piastri 374 and Verstappen 371. Norris&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":314731,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[441],"tags":[49,48,578,576,577,82],"class_list":["post-314730","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-formula-1","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-f1","tag-formula-1","tag-formula1","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/314730","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=314730"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/314730\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/314731"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=314730"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=314730"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=314730"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}