2025 Qatar Grand Prix Sprint Review

Linus O'Howell
1 day ago
2 min read

Piastri Wins to Close Gap on Norris

Oscar Piastri dominated from start to finish to take his third-straight Sprint victory in Qatar! George Russell managed to remain in P2, ahead of Lando Norris, who enters Qualifying later today with a 22-point lead over his teammate/Championship rival!

Lack of Overtakes

Oscar Piastri did his job by getting off the line well to remain in the lead at the start, whilst Yuki Tsunoda played a brilliant team game to allow Max Verstappen straight up to 4th! Charles Leclerc dropped a bunch of places after going off at Turn 2, whilst Max was then pushing hard to try and put Lando Norris under pressure! Verstappen did manage to get close to Norris on one occasion, but he couldn’t make the move as Lando began to pull away from the struggling Red Bull! After this, barely anything happened as the DRS’ lack of power (combined with the dirty air) meant there weren’t really any good opportunities to overtake! Liam Lawson passed Charles Leclerc off-track as the Ferrari continued to swerve all over the place, and I quickly need to mention that Lance Stroll and the two Alpines both boxed onto a set of soft tyres to do some early practising for Qualifying! Yuki Tsunoda also looked set to drop down to 6th due to an unnecessary 5-second time penalty for exceeding track limits, but he was regifted the place after Andrea Kimi Antonelli decided to get penalised for the same infringement! When I say that’s all that happened during this Sprint, I mean it!

The Highs and Lows of the Sprint

I’ve given out just the one 10 for today’s Sprint, and that is obviously for Oscar Piastri! This looked very much like the Oscar we saw for the earlier part of this season, and he’s going to need to do it again tomorrow if he’s to give himself a real chance at becoming World Champion! Elsewhere, George Russell did a very good job to remain in second place for Mercedes, whilst Fernando Alonso and Carlos Sainz should be happy with their points-scoring finishes!

On the other end of the spectrum, I’ve given out a single 1 for the final Sprint Race of 2025, and that is, unfortunately, for Lewis Hamilton! This may come as a surprise, but Lewis’ pace was absolutely horrendous this afternoon; the fact he’s finished 7 seconds behind Nico Hulkenberg (who’s finished P16) is horrific! Yes, Pierre Gasly, Lance Stroll, and Franco Colapinto all finished behind him, but they all pitted, so I won’t be too harsh on them! Also, Charles Leclerc was all over the place in the other Ferrari, a horrific Saturday so far for the Scuderia!