F1 2025: Qatar Grand Prix Sprint Recap: Oscar Piastri keeps title fight going with Qatar Grand Prix Sprint win

Oscar Piastri came into the Qatar Grand Prix 2025 on the backfoot, on the back of consecutive poor weekends, but the Australian driver got his championship fight back on track early on in Qatar as the McLaren driver put in a calm and composed drive to ease to a Sprint win in Lusail. Piastri picked up some crucial points with his win in the Sprint while Mercedes’ George Russell finished second ahead of Piastri’s teammate, Lando Norris. Max Verstappen, the other championship contender, made up a couple of places but was unable to finish on the podium as the Red Bull star finished P4. 

Pole sitter Oscar Piastri got the grid going but it was his teammate, Lando Norris attacking George Russell in P2 immediately. Max Verstappen made up two places in the opening corners, racing away past Fernando Alonso and Yuki Tsunoda. Piastri built a gap of over a second by the second lap as the Australian left Russell and Norris behind. Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc meanwhile, had a shocking start, going wide at Turn 2 which saw him drop down to P13 after starting P9. Verstappen was all over the gearbox of Norris, as the reigning world champion was looking to keep his title fight alive while Russell in P2 was struggling to get into DRS range from Piastri ahead. 

Norris was unable to keep up with Russell ahead as the championship leader was struggling in P3, falling back. Kimi Antonelli picked off Fernando Alonso for P6 on lap 13 as the Mercedes driver finally got past a much slower Aston Martin with Alonso going extremely wide heading into the main straight that saw Antonelli ease past him on the main straight. Yuki Tsunoda was also handed a five second penalty due to exceeding track limits multiple times. Despite finding some pace late on along with the Mercedes struggling with some tyre degradation, Norris was unable to take P2 from George Russell which saw Norris finish third, holding off Verstappen behind him as well. Piastri, up ahead, was untouched as the Australian eased to a comfortable Sprint win with Russell denying McLaren another 1-2. 

Behind the top four, Mercedes’ Kimi Antonelli was going to inherit P5 from Tsunoda following the latter’s five second time penalty but Antonelli received a late five-second penalty of his own for track limit infringement that saw Tsunoda hang on to P5 despite getting that penalty. The two Spaniards, Fernando Alonso and Carlos Sainz rounded out the points places as they picked up some crucial points for their team in the Constructors’ fight. Ferrari had a rough weekend with Leclerc finishing P13 while Hamilton was right at the bottom of the field in P17 to round out a difficult Sprint for the Italian team. With Piastri’s win, he has brought down Norris’ lead in the Championship battle to 22 points while Verstappen is 25 points behind Norris in third place.

The grid will be back on track once again, later on tonight, for the qualifying session with Piastri aiming to bring his Sprint momentum into qualifying with Verstappen being the one who will have the spotlight on him as Red Bull need to turn things around if the Dutchman wants to keep his championship hopes alive.