The battle between Ferrari and McLaren is already on in Qatar, as Lando Norris and Oscar Piastri finished P2 and P3, sandwiched between Charles Leclerc and Carlos Sainz in P1 and P4.
All the drivers started the only free practice session of the Qatar GP on medium tires, except for Charles Leclerc, Carlos Sainz, and Alexander Albon, who opted for the hard compound.
Many drivers exchanged the lead at the start of the session since they were improving lap after lap. Red Bull, Ferrari, McLaren, Mercedes, and even Alpine were already fighting at the top. Pierre Gasly was in great shape, just like he was in Las Vegas, as were Albon and Yuki Tsunoda, who were P7 and P8.
After the first run, Leclerc was the fastest on hard tires, ahead of Max Verstappen and Gasly. Lando Norris was fourth with Sainz right behind. Meanwhile, Lewis Hamilton, Sergio Perez, and Oscar Piastri were a bit off the pace compared to their teammates, as they were only in P9, P10, and P11.
There was a lot of wind and that didn’t help the drivers, especially when they were in the middle of the corners as well as in the corners exit. Both Norris and Piastri had to abort their laps due to loss of traction.
The Britton later improved and went up to P2, with Leclerc going faster, too. Sainz closed the gap to his teammate and snatched the second position away from Norris.
Gasly was about to set an interesting lap time, as he was purple in the second sector, but he then made a mistake and had to abort his lap. Sainz then improved Leclerc’s time and went up to P1, 0.351s ahead of the Monégasque.
The teams then focused on race pace simulations, but right at the end, Albon fitted the soft tires and went third-fastest. He wasn’t the only one, as Verstappen also tried a flying lap on the softs.
Everybody then switched to soft tires to simulate a qualifying run. Initially, it was Leclerc ahead of Norris and Piastri, with Sainz fourth. Lance Stroll also did a great lap as he was P5. Russell, Albon, and Hamilton were P6, P7, and P8 while Verstappen was only ninth ahead of Fernando Alonso in P10.
A few drivers further improved, one of them was Leclerc, who further increased his gap to Norris. Tsunoda went up to P5, with Valtteri Bottas right behind. Stroll was seventh, Russell eighth, Albon ninth, and Hamilton tenth. Verstappen and Perez were only in P11 and P18.