A delighted George Russell qualified in second place for Sunday's Qatar Grand Prix following a late and confusing deletion of the best laps by rival McLaren drivers.
DOHA -- When the checkered flag waved to end Friday's qualifying session, defending champion Max Verstappen was fastest for Red Bull ahead of Lando Norris of McLaren with Mercedes' Russell third and Oscar Piastri fourth in the second McLaren.
At one point, he turned to look for Norris."Where is Lando?" he asked."He seems to have disappeared!" Piastri said:"I'm not particularly happy with myself. Very, very scruffy on that last lap. Bit more on the table, but I'll take a top three."Hamilton said he felt that Norris deserved to have kept his place after taking issue with the severity of the penalties when drivers exceed the limits.
"So for us to be so close is pretty awesome. I mean, for me, it was a relatively average qualifying session – Q1 and Q3 particularly. I was able to put together the lap, but it came too early, in Q2, so I wish I had that for Q3."