The sprint race at Losail was a frustrating affair for many drivers who said they were unable to get close enough to attempt to overtake other cars.
Only one legitimate change of position occured in the top 16 places over the 19-lap race, when Andrea Kimi Antonelli passed Fernando Alonso. Liam Lawson overtook Charles Leclerc off the track but handed the position back.
Alexander Albon, who started the race 10th and finished there, was not surprised by the processional race. “I was in DRS [range] pretty much the whole race but [it was] boring, for sure,” he told the official Formula 1 channel. “I knew there was going to be no overtaking and there was no overtaking.”
Nico Hulkenberg, who spent every lap in 16th place, agreed it had been “pretty static.”
“Obviously the high-speed nature makes it very difficult to follow and get close. It’s almost like driving into a wall, there’s just this air buffer between cars and it’s impossible to break that. We had good pace but just almost impossible to make progress.”
Antonelli said it was “very tricky” to pass, after pulling off his move on Alonso. “Running in dirty air is always very tricky, especially in a track like this where you have so many high speed [corners], it’s very difficult.”
George Russell said on Friday he wanted the FIA to extend the DRS zone on the main straight, having shortened it prior to last year’s race. However after Saturday’s sprint race he suspected a longer zone would have made little difference.
“I didn’t even get DRS one single lap,” he said, “so it doesn’t matter if it was three times the length or shorter, I didn’t get within DRS.
“Obviously, when you go around a corner almost flat-out with three high-speed corners before the straight, it’s challenging to stay close. Then turn one, we’re braking around 40 metres before the corner, whereas at other tracks we’re braking at 100 or 110 metres.
“So it’s definitely one of the best tracks on the whole calendar to drive, [but] overtaking? It’s one of the toughest.”
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2025 Qatar Grand Prix
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