McLaren's Oscar Piastri will be hoping to continue that this historical trend that has existed since the inaugural Qatar Grand Prix in 2021: the driver to set fastest time in qualifying has led every lap and won the race.

With his sixth pole position of the season under the lights of the Lusail circuit on Saturday evening, Piastri further lowered the track record he set in sprint qualifying to 1m19.387s, using the soft tyre (nearly 1.2 seconds faster than last year's pole).

The softest compound was chosen by all drivers from start to finish of qualifying, which got underway at 21:00 in temperatures of 21 degrees ambient and 24 degrees on track.

In these cool temperatures, some drivers chose a two-lap run to warm the tyres before embarking on their flying laps.

There were two short delays during qualifying: a brief pause before Q2 to sweep up some loose gravel, with the sharp edges having caused some cuts to the tyres on Friday in particular. The final Q3 session was then effectively split in two, after a red flag to retrieve plastic debris, following the first run that was headed by Norris - who had also set a new track record.

But Piastri was able to hit back and go even faster on the decisive second run, with the three title protagonists now occupying the first three places on Sunday's grid. If Piastri can finish ahead of his team mate, the title fight stays alive to Abu Dhabi.

The Pirelli Pole Position Award was given to Piastri by Alton Mason. The American - mentored by Naomi Campbell - is one of the most in-demand models on catwalks all over the world, having been elected Model of the Year five times in a row. In 2022 he also starred in the 'Elvis' movie biopic, alongside Austin Butler and Tom Hanks.

The final sprint race of the year got underway at 17:00 local time in ambient temperatures of 26 degrees and track temperatures of 30 degrees. All the drivers started on used medium tyres, apart from the two Alpines and the Ferrari of Lewis Hamilton: which started at the back and fitted new mediums.

McLaren's Oscar Piastri led all 19 laps from pole to take his first sprint race win of the year, having never been seriously challenged. This was Piastri's third consecutive sprint win in Qatar, having also triumphed here in 2023 and 2024.

With all six sprint races now complete, the unofficial 'sprint championship' winners of 2025 are Max Verstappen are Lando Norris, who each claimed two victories, with Lewis Hamilton and now Piastri taking the others. Verstappen however retains the all-time record for sprint wins, with 13 under his belt since the format was inaugurated in 2021.

Mario Isola: "The only difference in tyre choice for the sprint race was new or used mediums, depending on the results from sprint qualifying - as the few drivers not to get through SQ1 were able to use new tyres. Three drivers also made a pit stop in the sprint race to try out the soft tyres, probably to assess their potential use in Sunday's grand prix.

Just as was the case last year, we saw some tyres where graining had accelerated wear: taking it to the maximum but without any loss of performance. These instances, noted mainly on the front-left tyres, are exactly why the limit of 25 laps on each set has been imposed.

The considerably faster lap times compared not only to last year but also the latest simulations has led to a bigger increase in loads on the tyres than expected. As a precaution, we already prescribed an increase in minimum pressures of 1 psi on both axles at the end of Friday.

We saw some more cuts on some of the tyre treads during Saturday, but fewer than Friday. The two pit stops expected on Sunday should mitigate this issue. Looking ahead to the race, the sets of mediums kept back by the teams lead to the conclusion that most could go for two stints on the yellow tyre. The fastest strategy is with a final stint on the soft, following a pit stop between laps 44-50. The use of the hard C1 at the beginning, or alternatively between two medium C2 stints, would allow the pit stops to be spread out more evenly during the race - but this is theoretically slower than a strategy that uses all three available compounds.

Medium-hard-soft is the second-quickest tactic on paper, with pit stop windows that are identical to the fastest strategy: between laps 19-25 and 46-50, in accordance with the lap limit. If there are no safety cars, we believe that the teams are likely to maximise the 25 laps allowed for each set.

Another strategy using all three compounds could be hard-medium-soft, with a shorter final stint to the flag. In short, there are plenty of options on the table."