Oscar Piastri will start on pole position for the 2025 Qatar Grand Prix, leading the trio of world championship contenders on the starting grid, ahead of McLaren team-mate Lando Norris and reigning champion Max Verstappen.

Saturday’s sprint race winner was back on top thanks to his final flying lap in qualifying which took him to the top of the timing screens, displacing Norris who abandoned his final flying lap after understeering wide in Turn 2.

Verstappen also improved at the end of the session to move ahead of George Russell on the grid. With a 25 point deficit to Norris, he must finish ahead of the McLaren driver to keep his title hopes alive. Piastri, who is 22 points behind, cannot drop more than three points to his team-mate.

Scroll down or click to see how the grid will look when it lines up for the 23rd round of the season, which is due to start at 4pm GMT (7pm local time).

After victory in the Saturday morning sprint and outscoring Norris for the first time since the Dutch Grand Prix in August, Piastri was wary of changing a winning formula “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it,” he said, and duly drove to pole.

“We left it pretty much the same,” he said. “Very, very minor tweaks here and there, but no. Everything felt great all weekend.”

Norris was left ruing a Turn 2 error, which cost him a chance of answering Piastri’s final time, having been locked in a duel with his team-mate throughout the session — a tenth ahead in Q1, then two-tenths behind Piastri in Q2.

“I just got a bit of understeer and was going to go off, so I had to abort, which is a shame, but it’s the way it is,” said Norris, who will be champion if he wins Sunday’s race. “I’m second, so not a whole chance for me to win at the minute,” he said. “But yeah, I just focus on trying to get a good start. That’s all.”