On the back of a difficult race last time out in Las Vegas, McLaren bounced back to secure P1 and P3 for today's Qatar F1 Sprint. F1Technical's senior writer Balazs Szabo delivers what drivers had to say after the closely-matched sprint qualifying.

McLaren driver Lando Norris led the way through all three segments of Sprint Qualifying beneath the lights at Lusail on Friday evening, while George Russell elbowed Oscar Piastri out of second on his final flying lap, narrowly denying the title-chasing team a front-row lockout.

Ferrari drivers looked quick in the sole one-hour practice, but Carlos Sainz and Charles Leclerc only ended up fourth and fifth on the grid for today's F1 Qatar Sprint, with newly-crowned four-time F1 champion Max Verstappen grabbing P6.

Lewis Hamilton was content with the long-run pace of his W15, but he struggled for one-lap pace, and took only seventh for the sixth and final sprint race of the season.

McLaren

“A good start to the weekend and that’s job done for today. We expected to be better here, it was one of our strongest circuits last year and it feels very quick out there. We made good improvements between practice and Sprint Qualifying and the team did a great job with the car, which gave me a lot of confidence.

"The job tomorrow is the maximise points for the Constructors’ Championship, but we know it’s going to be a battle: Mercedes will be quick, and Ferrari will be fast. It’s not going to be an easy one for us, but it’s going to be an exciting Sprint for everyone watching. I’m looking forward to it.”

Oscar Piastri, 3rd, 1:21.171

"I am pretty happy with that. It felt like it was coming together well, and P3 is a good place to start tomorrow. There are a few opportunities we can exploit as it wasn’t the best lap I’ve ever done, but with the tricky conditions, most people on the grid probably feel the same. This track is pretty mega to drive around, so I’m feeling confident for tomorrow. Let’s see what we can do.”

Mercedes

"The car felt decent today and the positive is we seem to have a fast car here in these conditions. Sprint Qualifying for me today didn’t go great but George should be able to have a strong run from where he’s starting tomorrow.

"Earlier on today the long run pace felt good so hopefully tomorrow this will come into play, and we’ll be able to make some progress in the Sprint. Unfortunately, from where I’m starting in P7 it’s going to be difficult to compete for the win, but I’ll try my best and see what I can do. We also have Qualifying tomorrow evening so hopefully we can have a good session and make some progress there, who knows what tomorrow brings."

"Today we had a really strong session during SQ3. The car was feeling great and this circuit is one of the best with the high speed corners. For my final lap, I was able to go flat through these for the first time this weekend which resulted in me confusing the engine a little, so I lost a bit of time on the exit. Ultimately Lando was a smidge out of reach today and I don’t think we could have secured P1 even without this slight loss.

"Tomorrow we’ll be going for the best result we can, hopefully making a good start and then we go from there. Our focus will also be on Qualifying later in the day to ensure we can achieve the best result we can there, too."

Ferrari

"Our FP1 performance was better than expected, so our hopes were that we could finish SQ in good positions, given that this weekend is such an important one for us. Unfortunately, we didn’t and P4 and 5 is all that was possible today.Let’s see what tomorrow brings. For now we are not in the best positions, but things can play out differently come the Sprint race."

"A rather unusual qualifying session. In terms of balance, we worked in the right direction and the car improved from free practice. However, in SQ3 I had quite a lot of understeer which obviously didn't help to put together a better lap.

"Anyway, starting on the second row can still allow us to bring home a good result and hopefully, to try and attack one of the McLarens ahead, score points and collect data which will help us prepare for Sunday."

Red Bull

“It is super tight out there and we lacked pace today. We don’t really have the balance to attack entry to mid corner, the high speed is okay, but overall our car is just a bit off. P6 isn’t where we want to be but was the maximum we could achieve today.

"It will be tough to fight the cars around me but hopefully we can push a bit more during the Sprint. For Qualifying we will look to improve the situation, but we will see what happens on track tomorrow.

“To get my final lap, we were all opening gaps and Charles came through and we were fighting for truck space into turn one and I lost a couple of tenths there, enough to be knocked out unfortunately. It is a shame because I feel we really progressed with the car from P1 to Sprint Qualifying, we have a lot more potential.

"I think it is going to be tough to come through the field tomorrow, so we will focus hard on the rest of the weekend. In such a short race I don’t think there is a lot we can do but we will try our hardest.

Alpine

Esteban Ocon, 18th, 1:22.906
“It’s been a tough evening and we did not manage to put together a better lap to qualify higher on the grid for tomorrow’s Sprint race. We need to continue to work with the team to find more performance and understand a few things.

"We will try to take every opportunity that will present itself in tomorrow’s race as a lot can happen in these fast-paced events. We have another opportunity in Qualifying too so hopefully we can find some learnings overnight and find some improvements going into that session.”

“I’m happy to qualify in eighth place in Sprint Qualifying. The top four teams were very quick in the end, so I think qualifying in eighth was the best we could achieve today. We are in front of one Haas and one RB who we are in a fight with in the Championship. Free Practice 1 was good for us and I felt good in the car in the conditions.

"In Sprint Qualifying, however, I was not as comfortable and we had to work hard to get through SQ1 and SQ2 building lap time bit by bit. Tomorrow, the top eight score points so we are in the mix. As we know, the Championship is tight so I expect a fight with Haas and RB in the Sprint. We must target points and we will give everything we can.”

Haas

Nico Hulkenberg, 9th, 1:22.088
“It was a good, clean quali. We might have to review SQ3 as we had a different run profile to everyone else, so we might need to understand that. Otherwise, it was a solid session and again very close to Alpine and RB – we’re all close and it’s generally a compact field.

"It’s a mighty fast track, there’s a lot of grip on this tarmac, and certainly it’s physical and demanding. The Sprint is tough for anyone in the midfield to get points as it’s not the usual top 10 places scoring, so we’ll see, many things can happen and you have to stay in it. It’s all to play for.”

“The car was pretty decent. I got pressured by traffic on my out-lap and ended up starting my lap right behind Nico, which wasn’t ideal – but the car was good and we have a decent chance tomorrow. We’ll see how we go, it’s obviously a Sprint with no pit stop so we’ll need to overtake on track.”

RB

Liam Lawson, 10th, 1:22.577
“The Team put in a lot of effort since this morning to find a step in performance and pace. It was great to see that translate on track. It’s a shame we had a lap deleted in SQ3. It’s one position, but we now need to make up two places for points tomorrow. However, we’re very happy with the step we made.

"Of course, there’s always more to extract and we’ll work on that overnight. We did a brief long run this morning, so will go through those numbers, and try to move forward. It’s very close with Alpine, Haas and us on track tomorrow, and we’re fighting each other in the Constructors, so the Sprint is very important, and we can take confidence from today.”

“It was a tough Sprint Qualifying today and I think we deserved more from it. I did what I could, but unfortunately, we haven’t been able to maximise our performance. I still think we have the right potential with our car here in Qatar so for sure we could have done better than that. I didn’t do any mistakes and I know what happened, so I’ll have a look tonight together with the team to try and get some learning from today.”

Aston Martin

"It was a better Sprint Qualifying for us here tonight in Qatar. We were quite comfortable in SQ1 and we just missed out on SQ3 by a small margin. The high-speed nature and temperature of the track seems to be bit better for our package. We have an opportunity to fight for some points in the Sprint tomorrow and hopefully in the race on Sunday too."

Lance Stroll, 14th, 1:22.599
"It's good to be back on track here in Qatar. SQ1 was good and I was happy with the laps I set, but we came across a bit of traffic on my final SQ2 run which didn't help.

"I lost a bit of time with that and the margins are obviously very tight. The car's performance hasn't been too bad today, but I think it will be tricky to overtake in the Sprint race tomorrow. There's still a lot of action left this weekend so more opportunities to come."

Williams

"Firstly, it’s been a lot of fun out there today. It’s a really nice track and very quick. We’re maybe a bit disappointed with the Sprint Qualifying result. We struggled in Free Practice with not quite getting the tyres in the right place and had the same issue in Sprint Quali, but I think most teams are struggling to find that magic window. I think we’ll be okay tomorrow. Our long run pace was really strong, so I’m optimistic."

"It was a tough day as from Free Practice we were struggling with the car. We didn’t really find the right direction to go in. I was losing time little by little through a lap in most corners which is always the most frustrating part because there are no big chunks of lap time lost in one place.

"The high-speed felt ok but when coming to medium and slower speed corners I was really struggling with the front end and balance. We tried to fix the issues with some setup changes after Free Practice, but it didn’t work as well as we wanted. However, with all the data we’ve gained from today and in tomorrow’s Sprint Race, I’m hoping we might be able to do something more interesting tomorrow in the main Qualifying session."

Kick Sauber

"Today's result was better than our average this season, which means we made another small step forward in making it to the second stage of qualifying. The competition is extremely close out there and we seem to be right in the mix, so I'm hoping we can find a bit more pace for the actual qualifying tomorrow afternoon and work our way into the top ten. Of course, we'll try everything we can in the Sprint tomorrow morning, but our main focus remains on Sunday and maximising our chances for the main race."

"We were quite close to making it through to SQ2, as the car felt pretty good. Unfortunately, we got it wrong in our time window for the final lap of the session: we waited too long in the pits and that meant we had too much traffic when starting the lap.

"It’s a shame as while I was slower in turns one and two compared to the previous lap, I was able to gain seven tenths in the last corners – but the damage was done. Conditions out there were tricky: it was very windy and that made the high-speed corners very challenging. I think we had a chance to make it to SQ2, but we missed out. Let’s see what we can achieve tomorrow.”