The Qatar Grand Prix program continued with sprint qualifying, where there wasn't much news under the sun: Lando Norris took pole position for sprint qualifying!
During SQ1, after the first timed laps, Lando Norris and George Russell took turns at the top, followed by Scuderia Ferrari duo Charles Leclerc. After the final fast laps of the stage, Norris maintained his dominance to finish in first place, while the eliminations - and it's safe to say that the first name wasn't a surprise - included Sergio Perez, Yuki Tsunoda, Esteban Ocon, Guanyu Zhou and Franco Colapinto.
After the first attempts in SQ2, the trend remained the same, i.e. McLaren held on strongly. With the only difference being that Oscar Piastri was now leading, just ahead of Leclerc and Norris. In the end, he maintained this dominant role, only George Russell was able to intervene, and thus the trio of Norris, Russell, Piastri was created. However, there was no continuation for Liam Lawson, Fernando Alonso, Alexander Albon, Valtteri Bottas and Lance Stroll, who were able to start preparing for Saturday's main program.
There weren't many unanswered questions left in SQ3: Lando Norris and McLaren quickly mastered this stage of the weekend, easily taking pole position ahead of George Russell and Oscar Piastre.
