Free Practice 1 for the Qatar Grand Prix delivered a clear early message. McLaren entered the weekend prepared and confident, with Oscar Piastri finishing fastest and Lando Norris close behind. The one-hour session carried extra weight due to the sprint format, leaving teams with limited time to set their baseline before parc ferme restrictions began. McLaren spent the early part of the session evaluating the hard tyre but moved decisively to the top of the order once they fitted the soft compound, ending the session with a convincing one-two.
Red Bull and Mercedes struggled to match that progression. Max Verstappen looked competitive on the hard tyre and briefly held second, but the RB21 did not improve on the softs. Verstappen reported bouncing, inconsistent gear shifts and weak energy recovery. Those issues limited his confidence and prevented him from producing a clean lap. He finished sixth, almost six tenths behind Piastri. The team’s radio exchanges made clear that key areas of the setup remain unresolved, which is not ideal heading into a sprint weekend.
Yuki Tsunoda followed a similar pattern. His early pace on the hard compound was promising, but once he switched to the softs the lap did not come together. He lost time in sector one and appeared to be held up by traffic. The end result was thirteenth place, a quarter of a second behind Verstappen. With only a single practice session available, Red Bull now enters sprint qualifying with limited data and an unsettled car on low-fuel running.
Mercedes faced the same limitation. George Russell was quick during the early stages but could not extract speed from the soft tyre and ended the session fourteenth. Andrea Kimi Antonelli placed tenth and reported that the balance still needs refinement. Strong winds around the circuit contributed to unstable steering feedback for several drivers, including Verstappen and Leclerc, which complicated the final runs.
The top positions behind McLaren produced a notable mix of teams. Fernando Alonso took third for Aston Martin, Carlos Sainz placed fourth for Williams, and Isaac Hajar secured fifth for Racing Bulls. Racing Bulls brought a small aerodynamic upgrade this weekend in the form of optional Gurney flaps for the front wing to help refine front-end balance. Hajar used the package effectively, although Liam Lawson ended the session down in nineteenth.
Ferrari’s pace remained muted. Charles Leclerc could only manage eighth behind Alex Albon, and Lewis Hamilton finished twelfth. Neither driver reported any major progress, continuing the team’s pattern of inconsistency through medium-speed sections at Losail.
With sprint qualifying next and parc ferme restrictions locking the cars in place, teams with an unstable balance now face a difficult task. McLaren begins the competitive sessions with a clear advantage, while Red Bull and Mercedes need rapid adjustments to avoid carrying their FP1 limitations into the rest of the weekend.
