This session has finished. No further updates will be posted.
Qualifying for the 2024 Qatar Grand Prix is coming up next
McLaren showed strong pace yesterday in qualifying for the sprint race and could have locked out the front row of the grid. George Russell managed to split the two MCL38s and he looked like their biggest threat in today’s sprint race.
Drivers are queuing up at the end of the pits to join the track. Russell is first among them.
The session is go. Russell, who sat at the pit lane exit for a minute and a half, leads the drivers out.
Magnussen immediately loses his first lap time with a track limits infringement. Lando Norris, surely the favourite for pole position, sets a 1’22.029, but Max Verstappen beats that by three tenths of a second.
Russell moves to the top now with a 1’21.519, seven-tenths of a second quicker than team mate Lewis Hamilton who finished his lap a few seconds before him.
Sergio Perez, who was narrowly eliminated in the first round yesterday, moves up to seventh. No times from the Alpine drivers yet.
Perez has fallen to ninth. He says he ran out of battery energy at the end of his lap.
Everyone has set a representative time now and the five drivers in the drop zone are Hulkenberg, Magnussen, Zhou, Colapinto and Ocon.
The times are close: Perez and Leclerc are only safe by two-tenths of a second, so we could see an elimination among the front-runners if they have trouble in the final runs.
Leclerc has improved to fourth, Perez still in the pits for now with four minutes remaining. Russell offering to give Hamilton a tow.
Vertappen improves to fourth on used soft tyres, Perez has joined the track on a new set as he falls to 12th.
Few improvements at the moment – Norris sets a better time but it gets deleted for track limits.
Albon goes 15th, Colapinto stays 19th, Ocon stays last, so we know two drivers who are out.
Tsunoda narrowly escapes Q1 – but Lawson is out along with Albon. Hulkenberg also surprisingly failed to make the cut. Perez makes it comfortably through in eighth place.
Lawson says: “Alonso purposefully slowed up in nine and ten when he aborted his lap. That just sucks, man.” He race engineer Pierre Hamelin replies: “That was Stroll.”
Q2 is go. Russell puts up a 1’21.161 as the benchmark, Sainz is three tenths of a second slower. Piastri pops into second ahead of the Ferrari.
Verstappen shows more pace in the Red Bull, he goes quickest by seven-hundredths of a second. Norris…
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