Oscar Piastri led a McLaren one-two finish in the Qatar Sprint after pole-getter Lando Norris handed his teammate the lead on the final lap.
Norris made the decision to switch places exiting the final corner of his own volition as payback for Piastri handing him victory in the Sao Paulo sprint last month, when he was still in contention for the drivers’ championship.
Norris nailed his start from pole to hold the lead into he first turn, but front-row starter George Russell was challenged by Piastri, starting third. The Australian took the Briton side by side around the outside into the first turn before scything down his inside into Turn 2 for a McLaren dream start to the race.
By then Norris had bolted, however, capitalizing on the scrap behind to put 1.2s on the field by the end of the first sector, leaving Piastri vulnerable to the slippery Mercedes behind.
Russell made an attempt to take back the place on lap 4, using DRS down the main straight to draw up to the back of the McLaren, but Piastri was aggressive in closing the door into he Turn 1 right-hander.
“He just f***ing turned into me,” Russell fumed, though the stewards took no notice of the move.
By now the threat to the one-two finish was clear, and Norris was asked to slow to keep Piastri within range of his DRS as a defensive play against Russell, neutralizing the Mercedes driver’s own DRS advantage. The slowed pace brought Sainz into the fold, having held fourth off the line, but prevented any changes of position in the DRS train.
The enforced ceasefire was briefly broken on lap 14, when Norris stretched his legs to set what was then the fastest lap of the sprint and pulled 1.4s clear of the pack again. Russell attempted to seize the chance with another DRS-assisted move down the inside, but again he found the door firmly shut.
“F*** me that was late — twice now,” he complained, but with no ensuing action from race control.
The Briton had one more opportunity on the final lap, when Piastri again fell behind the leader, but again he couldn’t force an error, forcing the Mercedes driver to closely follow the leaders home around the lap.
It was with him just 0.6s behind Piastri that Norris decided to hit the brakes out of the final corner to pull off a finely judged switch in a show of gratitude for his teammate doing the same in Brazil.
“It was probably a bit closer than what I was wanting,” he said. “But I planned to do it since Brazil. It’s just what I thought was best.
“It was probably a little bit sketchy. The team told me not to do it, but I thought I could get away with it, and we did.
“We scored a one-two. That’s what we were aiming for today. We got maximum points. We’re happy as a team. We executed things perfectly.”
Piastri credited his teammate for helping him defend second place through the race to secure the one-two finish.
“It was about defense for the whole race, to be honest,” he said. “I had a good start and a good Turn 1 but then didn’t quite have the pace. I think I killed the front a little bit early on. I was struggling a bit for the rest of the Sprint.
“Some great teamwork. I think without that help it would’ve been a much more difficult Sprint.”
Russell was frustrated to be thwarted by McLaren’s team game to finish third ahead of Ferrari teammates Sainz and Charles Leclerc in fourth and fifth.
Leclerc had dropped behind Lewis Hamilton on the first lap but barged back past with a gutsy exchange on lap 13, diving down the Briton’s inside into Turn 1 and then hanging around his outside through Turn 2 to complete the move. It limited the damage done to Ferrari’s constructors’ title hopes to six points, its margin to McLaren now 30 points.
Hamilton finished sixth ahead of Nico Hulkenberg, who scored two valuable points for Haas’s hold on sixth in the title standings.
Max Verstappen finished an uncompetitive eighth after losing three places off the line and recovering only one from Pierre Gasly.
Gasly finished ninth ahead of Kevin Magnussen to complete the top 10, with Fernando Alonso, Valtteri Bottas, Lance Stroll, Esteban Ocon and Alex Albon.
Liam Lawson lost seven places on the first lap to finish 16th ahead of teammate Yuki Tsunoda.
Franco Colapinto finished 18th after overtaking Sergio Perez at the pit lane exit, both having started off the grid following overnight set-up changes.
Zhou Guanyu gambled on the soft tire and was forced to pit on his way to 19th, while Perez finished 20th after a pit stop for a new front wing.
