San Francisco Frontiers - Norris boosts McLaren title hopes with sprint pole

After a disappointing outing in Las Vegas, where his drivers' title hopes ended as Max Verstappen clinched his fourth championship with Red Bull, the British driver was back on top form under the lights at the Lusail International Circuit.

Norris clocked a best time in one minute and 21.012 seconds to outpace Russell, the winner in Nevada, by just 0.063 seconds at the end of a closely-fought session. Oscar Piastri in the second McLaren was third.

"It’s tough," said Norris of his laps and the speed of the track.

"It is so quick around here. It feels like the quickest of the year and in the final sector you feel like you are just hanging on.

"I want to win and I want to win every session as a driver. Our target tomorrow is a one-two so we maximise the points for our constructors' but we know Mercedes and Ferrari will be quick."

The Ferraris of Carlos Sainz and Charles Leclerc qualified fourth and fifth ahead of Verstappen and seven-time champion Lewis Hamilton in the second Mercedes, an outcome that was not enough to buoy hopes that the Italian team can stop McLaren claiming their first constructors' title in 26 years.

Pierre Gasly took an impressive eighth for Alpine ahead of Nico Hulkenberg of Haas and RB's Liam Lawson.

McLaren hold a 24 points lead in the teams' title race with 608 to Ferrari on 584.

With two Grands Prix remaining, including one sprint, McLaren can clinch the title with a dominant weekend ahead of Ferrari in both the sprint and Sunday’s Grand Prix.

In cooling conditions with temperatures of 19 (air) and 22 (track) falling as darkness descended, Kevin Magnussen set the early benchmark time for Haas in 1:23.750 before the 'big boys' joined the fray, Sainz soon going top.

Norris then gave notice of his intentions with a lap in 1:22.785, but it was not enough as speeds increased with the drop in temperature and Ferrari took advantage with Leclerc and Sainz on top.

With three minutes remaining in SQ1, Norris bounced back in 1:22.021, a time Russell equalled exactly with the same lap time. Piastri, last year’s winner, went fourth, six-tenths off his team-mate’s best time.

Norris trimmed his time to 1:21.356 in the final seconds to finish four-tenths clear of Sainz, six-tenths ahead of Russell and Verstappen with Hamilton fifth.

But it was another painful session for Sergio Perez of Red Bull who exited in Q1 along with RB's Yuki Tsunoda, Alpine's Esteban Ocon, Zhou Guanyu of Sauber and Williams' Franco Colapinto.

As prescribed, all of the cars ran on medium compound tyres and nearly all of them were under investigation by the stewards for driving too slowly, at times, in SQ1 as they 'backed up' to seek a 'tow'.

The SQ2 segment began with Verstappen on top before Leclerc took over in 1:22.130 and then Piastri in 1:22.050, the leading teams all very clothed matched.

With two minutes to go, Norris was back in control in 1:22.231 ahead of Russell and Piastri with Verstappen fourth until Hamilton knocked him down to fifth ahead of the two Ferraris.

Out this time went two-time champion Fernando Alonso of Aston Martin, Williams' Alex Albon, Valtteri Bottas of Sauber, Lance Stroll in the second Aston Martin and Magnussen.

The top ten shootout began with Leclerc in a hurry to clock 1:21.706, as they all switched to softs, Norris lapping in 1:21.012 for top spot with Piastri a tenth down in second. McLaren looked imperious.

K.Torres--SFF