Lando Norris took pole position in the Sprint Qualifying for the Qatar GP. The McLaren driver was just 63 thousandths of a second ahead of an ‘insider’ George Russell, who beat Oscar Piastri and both Ferraris to make Mercedes once again the biggest enemy of the two teams fighting for the Constructors’ Championship.

After an incredible weekend in Las Vegas, Russell has again excelled on the night in Qatar. Once again with low temperatures of 21° Celsius in the air, the performance of the W15 has surprised and the ‘silver star’ team becomes Ferrari’s biggest threat this weekend in their Championship fight against McLaren.

F1 data: Mercedes emerge as threat to Ferrari and McLaren in Qatar

Compared to the MCL38, Russell’s W15 performed better at higher speeds. In the slow and medium speed corners, Lando made the difference to take the Sprint pole over Russell.

Norris was clearly the driver with the most downforce in his set-up alongside Alexander Albon, something that should also play in his favour tomorrow for better tyre management.

It wasn’t as much of a surprise as in Las Vegas, but Russell sneaking ahead of Ferrari in the fight against McLaren is very bad news for the Italian team who need to score as many points as possible in each points-scoring session.

How do the drivers match up in the season head-to-heads?

👉 F1 2024: Head-to-head qualifying record between team-mates

👉 F1 2024: Head-to-head race statistics between team-mates

Compared to Ferrari, we can see that the W15 is very solid in the fast right-handed corners T4 and T5 of the Losail circuit, making a big difference in Sector 1.

Mercedes has an extra point of speed in the key medium-high speed corners which by the nature of this track eventually makes the gap between Russell and Sainz gradually increase.

In Sector 2 and Sector 3 the differences are very small and both cars have a very similar behaviour. But who really makes the difference in one lap performance is McLaren.

To see Verstappen ahead of McLaren, Mercedes and Ferrari in Sector 3 is due to the phenomenal performance of the RB20 in the high-speed corners. The Dutch driver was the least likely to lift his foot off the throttle in the final corners as demonstrated by the minimum speeds through the fast turns 14 and 15.

With a perfect lap, Oscar Piastri should have finished ahead of Russell. And worse news for Ferrari… In fact, Max Verstappen also had the potential to qualify ahead of Carlos Sainz and Charles Leclerc. Although the Italian team seems to have a stronger package than Red Bull.

The Sprint race could be a really interesting battle between the four teams. McLaren looks like the team to beat and Mercedes with slightly higher temperatures than in qualifying could lose the advantage over Ferrari.

And we all know what Max Verstappen is capable of, even if he has already accomplished his mission this season… Expect him to fight back during the Sprint race.

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