In Pictures: Qatar 2025
The Qatar Grand Prix served as the penultimate round of the season and the final event to use the Sprint format. Coming just one week after Las Vegas, and roughly 13,000 kilometers away as the crow flies, Lusail offered a striking contrast. Like Vegas and the season finale in Abu Dhabi, the race was held at night, but the weather couldn’t have been more different.
Temperatures in the Nevada desert had been unusually cold, while in Qatar the drivers faced heat and humidity reminiscent of Singapore. The Lusail circuit is notoriously demanding on tires, prompting the introduction of an exceptional measure (explained below) that capped the number of laps each tire set could run. As a result, teams were forced to make at least two pit stops during the race.
THE TRACK
The Lusail circuit was originally designed for motorcycle racing, a fact reflected in its distinctive, flowing layout, which features high-speed sequences and a main straight stretching over a kilometer. Located on the outskirts of Doha, the track posed unique challenges for drivers, cars, and tires. It offered 16 corners, ten of them right-handers, and its desert setting meant sand was frequently blown across the surface, influencing grip levels and track evolution. To mitigate this, several sections of artificial grass were installed around the circuit.
High temperatures remained a defining feature of the Qatar weekend. Even with the Grand Prix run at night, the combination of humidity and the heat retained from daylight hours created an extremely demanding cockpit environment, so much so that, in previous years, some drivers had felt unwell by the end of the race. From a tire-management perspective, track temperatures could trigger graining, although earlier events this season suggested that Pirelli’s latest compounds were more resistant to the issue.
FRIDAY
McLaren finished first and second in the weekend’s only Formula 1 practice session, which began at 16:30 local time. Piastri narrowly edged his teammate on the final run on soft tires, while most teams spent the first 45 minutes on the hard compound, with Russell consistently topping the timesheets on the white-banded tires.
Oscar Piastri said it was “nice to be back” as he took his first Sprint pole since Spa and his first pole in any session since Zandvoort. He also set a new track record at Lusail, having already claimed the top spot earlier in FP1, an ideal start to a crucial weekend. His 1m20.055s lap on the P Zero Red soft beat the previous fastest time at Lusail (1m20.520s), set by Max Verstappen last year.
Sprint qualifying got underway at 20:30 local time in relatively cool conditions, with ambient temperatures at 22°C (72°F) and track temperatures at 25°C (77°F). With plenty of track evolution on the smooth asphalt, the grid wasn’t settled until the final moments of SQ3. Russell briefly held pole before being displaced by Piastri, with Lando Norris securing third in the other McLaren.
Verstappen lined up sixth after being outqualified for the first time by his Red Bull teammate Yuki Tsunoda, who took fifth.
SATURDAY
The final Sprint race of the year got underway at 17:00 local time in ambient temperatures of 26°C (79°F) and track temperatures of 30°C (86°F). All drivers started on used medium tires, except for the two Alpines and Lewis Hamilton’s Ferrari, which began at the back on new mediums.
McLaren’s Oscar Piastri led all 19 laps from pole to claim his first Sprint win of the season, never coming under serious pressure. It marked his third consecutive Sprint victory in Qatar, following wins in 2023 and 2024.
A few hours later, Piastri carried that momentum into qualifying, setting the fastest lap ever recorded at Lusail on his way to pole position, a 1:19.387, nearly 1.2 seconds quicker than last year’s pole time.
Qualifying saw two brief delays. There was a short pause before Q2 to clear loose gravel, whose sharp edges had contributed to minor tire cuts on Friday. Q3 was then effectively split in two after a red flag, triggered when plastic debris was strangely thrown off Carlos Sainz’s rear tires and scattered across the circuit.
SUNDAY
Red Bull’s Max Verstappen secured his seventh win of the season at Lusail, with tire strategy at the heart of the action, extending a three-way title fight to next weekend’s championship finale in Abu Dhabi. The pivotal moment came with a Safety Car on lap seven after Nico Hilkenberg and Pierre Gasly crashed. It was the fourth time in four Qatar Grands Prix that the race had been neutralized. With most drivers starting on the medium tire, all but the two McLarens pitted for fresh rubber under the Safety Car, with Verstappen, who had already forced his way from third to second, the first to dive into the pits.
Stopping under the Safety Car carries an advantage of roughly 10 seconds compared to pitting under green-flag conditions, and this was where Verstappen gained his decisive margin.
Adding to the strategic complexity was the 25-lap limit imposed on each tire set for the 57-lap race. As a result, McLaren found itself out of sync with the rest of the field after choosing not to pit during the Safety Car.
Most of the field was required to make its final stop by lap 32, while McLaren extended each stint thanks to its earlier decision. Oscar Piastri surrendered the lead on lap 42 for his final stop, with teammate Lando Norris coming in two laps later as Verstappen consolidated control of the race.
Nearly all drivers ran the opening two stints on the medium compound before switching to the hard for the finish, including all three podium finishers. Piastri set the fastest lap of the race on both the medium and the hard, with the overall fastest lap, and a new race lap record of 1:22.996, coming on the hard compound on lap 4.
The final step of the podium went to Williams driver Carlos Sainz, who executed a flawless strategy to take his second podium of the season after starting seventh.
Excerpts and media courtesy of Pirelli S.p.A. and the official Formula 1 team press offices. All images are provided via Getty Images through the respective team media platforms and are credited to their rightful copyright holders. Used for editorial purposes only.
