Oscar Piastri will not give up: he led the Qatar test

The Australian was the fastest in the only practice session of the penultimate Formula 1 date. Lando Norris was second and Max Verstappen, sixth.

Oscar Piastri showed in the only training session for the Qatar GP that he wants to take advantage of his chances for the title to fight until the end. The Australian suffered a big drop in performance in the last handful of competitions and his comfortable leadership from a short time ago (he had 34 points after the 15th round) became a runner-up position and 24 behind Lando Norris. Upon arriving in Qatar, he made it clear within McLaren that he wants to fight until he has a chance and at the start of the penultimate event he demonstrated it with actions by leading the only free practice (since Belgium, which he did not lead a session).

The start of the 60 minutes of testing was not easy for those from Woking, especially for Norris. The Englishman, leader of the tournament and who can establish himself in Lusail, spent a long time in the pits after doing a few laps with hard tires and that the MCL39 raised a lot of sparks when passing through the fast sectors. The fact is not minor: the two cars of the English team have just been excluded from Las Vegas due to excessive wear on the bottom plate.

At times, Norris couldn’t even take him around the track. After the long time in the pits, he managed to channel his task into the race simulation moment, with the car loaded. And, at the end, he flew with the soft tires and seemed to have the best time by nailing 1m29s982. It seemed like he would take 1, but Piastri appeared, with 1m20s924 to unseat his teammate by 58 thousandths. The Woking cars were very fast compared to the rest: Fernando Alonso was third, 328 thousandths behind.

And Max Verstasppen? The Dutchman, who also arrived in Qatar 24 points behind Norris, was sixth. His Red Bull went better on the hard tires. When putting on the soft ones, he lost performance and was sixth, at 580 thousandths from Piastri. The result may indicate that the four-time champion is not a strong candidate to fight for pole in the sprint qualy that will take place later this Friday. But… It’s Max. Many times, as happened in the Qatar test, he showed his anger with the team due to problems with his car and then resurfaces in the best Phoenix style. Zak Brown already said it: “He’s the horror movie guy. Just when you think he won’t come back, he always comes back.”