2025 Qatar GP Qualifying Preview

Now, it is time for James Punt’s 2025 Qatar GP Qualifying preview. The Sprint Race didn’t go our way, hopefully we can bounce back.

2025 Qatar GP Qualifying

It was a total wipeout in the Sprint race. Verstappen jumped Alonso on the first lap, Russell’s tyres went off in the last couple of laps and he fell outside of the 2 second gap, Lando was just peddling round in third place. It was incredibly dull.

Piastri has been fastest in all three sessions and looks hard to budge. Norris could, if he can execute a perfect qualifying lap, but Piastri looks very comfortable around this track

The engineers can now start work on changing the set ups, if necessary. I don’t think the McLaren mechanics will be busy, but those at Red Bull will have plenty to do. Last year Verstappen was 0.795s faster in GP qualifying than he had been in Sprint qualifying. The track was quicker and everyone was faster, but Norris only improved by 0.240s, Piastri by 0.342s, Russell by 0.500s. Verstappen made the most progress by some margin.

Red Bull To Improve

We have to expect Red Bull to make positive progress. They will have had their sim drivers working overnight and they should have some idea of what to do. They couldn’t solve the problems they had in Sau Paulo from one qualifying to the next, so it is not guaranteed that he is going to be competing for pole, but I would be surprised if he wasn’t closer than he was in Sprint qualifying.

These Sprint race weekends are a bit confusing as the form from the Sprint often doesn’t repeat as may be expected, but sometimes it does. The last two sprint race weekends have seen the same front row in both qualifying sessions. The first three saw quite different line ups.

With Piastri only 0.032s ahead of Russell in sprint qualifying, we might expect that his narrow advantage could be overturned, but Russell wasn’t exuding much confidence that he could repeat his lap in Q3 of the sprint qualifying. He said it was one of his best laps ever and hard to repeat.

Piastri was 0.23s faster than Norris yesterday and 0.395s faster than Alonso in fourth. Norris wasn’t happy with his lap, so he has room for improvement. Alonso said his lap was out of the top drawer, so he will find it hard to better his fourth place.

Piastri Set For Pole

It looks set for a Piastri pole, Norris in second and then it gets harder to call. Maybe Verstappen can make third, or maybe Russell can be best of the rest again. One slight concern for Piastri is that in the last four sprint race weekends, he has dropped places from his sprint qualy to race qualy.

The market has Norris as the joint favourite at 3.00 with Piastri and Verstappen is 4.00.

Last year the sprint qualifying saw 1 Norris, 2 Russell, 3 Piastri, but GP qualifying ended with 1 Verstappen, 2 Russell, 3 Norris. Verstappen has been sixth in the sprint qualifying. Piastri slipped to fourth. In 2023 the format was different, the GP qualifying took place before the Sprint qualifying.

I would have to think that Piastri makes the most sense for pole. Against him is that he has tended to drop places from the sprint to the GP qualifying sessions. Also, he hasn’t had a GP pole position since the Dutch GP, which was eight races ago.

Norris On A Four Timer

Lando Norris has the last three GP pole positions in a row. Verstappen has had three poles in the last six, but that weekend in Brazil is fresh in my mind. The car was a dog that weekend and Red Bull didn’t fix it until they just rebuilt the whole thing before the race. It was a rocket ship after that.

All that considered, Piastri still gets my vote. Confidence is a huge thing and that has been completely missing since that Dutch GP. It looks like a return to one of his favourite tracks has done the trick for him and he has a bit of a spring in his step again. His odds are good enough to go in again.

2025 Qatar GP Qualifying Tip: 1 point Oscar Piastri to be the fastest qualifier @ 3.00 with Livescorebet

Ferrari are having a wretched weekend so far. Leclerc has been no better than eighth in any session so far, but of more interest is Hamilton. Ferrari decided to break parc ferme regulations and changed the set up on Hamilton’s car before the sprint race, but it didn’t make much difference. He made up one place, finishing a lowly seventeenth.

Leclerc will get the most out of the car, but Hamilton has mentally checked out. His attitude is more Kevin the Teenager than that of a very well-paid former world champion. It is all so unfair. Hamilton is a bit of a huffer and his bottom lip is tripping him up this weekend, as it was in Vegas, and Sao Paulo.

I expected Williams to struggle badly this weekend, and the team themselves thought as much. However, Sainz has been top eight in all sessions and Albon top ten. They look to have a car that is a match for Ferrari and with Hamilton not prepared to put a shift in, Sainz looks a decent bet to out qualify Hamilton.

2025 Qatar GP Qualifying Tip: 1 point Carlos Sainz to out qualify Lewis Hamilton @ 1.72 with Ladbrokes

In the same vein is Isack Hadjar. He is 6-4 against Hamilton in the last ten qualifying sessions. He has been faster than Hamilton in all three sessions, despite having his lap time deleted in Q2 yesterday.

2025 Qatar GP Qualifying Tip: 1 point Isack Hadjar to out qualify Hamilton @ 1.73 with Unibet

-JamesPunt