Oscar Piastri put together an eye-catching lap to beat his title rivals Lando Norris and Max Verstappen to pole position at the last opportunity in Qualifying for the Qatar Grand Prix.
The McLaren driver will be more eager than ever to maintain his lead in the 57-lap race as a victory will force the battle for the Drivers’ Championship to continue into Abu Dhabi, and he has undoubtedly put himself in the strongest place to keep himself in contention.
Norris, who holds a 22-point advantage over Piastri, took provisional pole with a blistering lap, but nevertheless needed to go again. At the beginning of his second attempt, he came close to drifting off track due to understeer and chose to abort the lap, leaving his team mate with one chance to beat his time.
Having converted pole to a win in the Sprint, Piastri knew what he needed to do and ended the session with a time of 1m 19.387s, 0.108s clear of Norris’ earlier effort.
To see exactly where Piastri made the difference in comparison to the second McLaren, click go on the video player above and check out our latest ‘Ghost Car’ feature.
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