🔗 Share this article Qatar's Short Race and Main Event Grid Setting: Live Updates Preamble Our correspondent will be here shortly to guide you through this day's sprint race (2pm GMT) and qualifying (6pm). Current Events Starting Lap Time The starting lap has started. Track Information There are nineteen laps of the longest circuit in F1, David Croft points out. Countdown The countdown is underway. Racer Positions An advantage in Max Verstappen's favour: his fellow driver Yuki Tsunoda is ahead of him by a single position. It's improbable to mess with the team's main man. Media Conversations Sky speaking with Sky now: Gary Neville is at the Mercedes team. Karun Chandhok is jumping ahead to the 2026 season, interviewing Adrian Newey about his stepping up to Aston Martin lead role. Starting Positions Just 16 cars on the grid. It was another poor grid-setting session for Lewis Hamilton: following his result of twentieth and final in Las Vegas, leading to an eighth-place finish in the grand prix, he did not manage to advance of Q1 again on Friday. Ferrari have consequently made changes to his setup and so he will start from the pit lane. The team's Lance Stroll and the Alpine pair of Pierre Gasly and Franco Colapinto are all starting from the same position. Driver Comments "We take the learning for tomorrow," says Isack Hadjar, starting eleventh. Expect a lot of that. Team Standings It's not all about the individual championship: The team have run away with the constructors' gong but the team, with a forty-point advantage over Red Bull, will be hoping to secure the runner-up position this weekend. George Russell can assist in this goal from the front row, and Antonelli will begin immediately after the leader. Previous Results Piastri won that day – as he did the previous season, too. The driver from McLaren is going for a third consecutive win. Short Race Importance Right, approximately twenty minutes remaining until the sprint race begins. Unless something goes wrong, it's greatest value is as a preview of what is to come, instead of significant in its itself, with just eight championship points awarded to the victor. However, second place here was sufficient for the driver to become champion in a prior season. The driver wins the championship after Pérez crashes out of the short race.