Title hopeful Norris beaten to Qatar pole by rival Piastri

Lando Norris, right, will have to finish ahead of Piastri on Sunday win the F1 drivers' title in Qatar

Oscar Piastri pipped McLaren team-mate and title rival Lando Norris to pole position for the potentially title-deciding Qatar Grand Prix.

The Australian beat Norris by 0.108 seconds after Norris, who had been fastest on their first runs by 0.035secs, aborted his final lap.

That gave Piastri the chance to put himself in a great position to win the race and take the title battle to a final-race decider in Abu Dhabi next weekend.

Red Bull's Max Verstappen, the other title contender, will start third, also a threat to Norris. The Dutchman has to finish ahead of Norris to keep his chances alive.

Norris will become champion on Sunday if he wins the race, or beats Piastri and Verstappen, but he blinked first as the tensions rose in one of the most crucial qualifying sessions of the weekend.

Norris was blisteringly quick on his first lap but a loss of front grip in Turn Two on his second meant he had to abort and opened the door to his team-mate.

Piastri delivered with a superb lap to give himself the perfect opportunity to keep his title hopes alive.

Norris said: "I just got a bit of understeer and was going go off and had to abort. But it's the way it is.

"Oscar did a good job and has been driving very well all weekend. Nothing to complain about, just didn't do the lap. All to play for tomorrow.

Piastri said: "Everything felt great all weekend. The team did a great job, had a little bit of a question mark on which tyres I wanted to use.

"Did a lap on the used set and that threw a spanner in the works because didn't expect them to be so good but went well on the new ones.

"Tonight we will review some things and see what I can do better than this morning, we are in a good position, progress, but it's a long race."

Verstappen has to go for it

Verstappen had struggled with his car in sprint qualifying and the sprint, complaining of bouncing. Red Bull had improved it for qualifying but it was still not enough to challenge the McLarens and he ended up 0.264secs off the pace.

He will be eyeing beating Norris into the first corner, knowing that, with overtaking so difficult, it might be his only hope of retaining his title chances.

"This qualifying was a little bit better even though we were still quite far off. Still some limitations (in the car).

"But at least we are P3 and it creates better opportunities because we know it is quite hard to pass around here."

Mercedes driver George Russell could not repeat the second place he achieved in the sprint and was fourth, just 0.011secs behind Verstappen, with his team-mate Kimi Antonelli in fifth, ahead of the Racing Bulls of Isack Hadjar.

Williams' Carlos Sainz, Aston Martin's Fernando Alonso, Alpine's Pierre Gasly and Ferrari's Charles Leclerc completed the top 10.

Leclerc survived a huge, high-speed spin out of Turn 15 on his first lap, but he fared better than team-mate Lewis Hamilton, who is having his worst weekend of the season.

After qualifying 18th for the sprint, and finishing only one place higher, Hamilton ended up in the same place on the grid for the grand prix.

The seven-time champion said: "I was generally feeling better. We made changes. The car was feeling better. Just wasn't great."

Asked by a television interviewer for F1's in-house channel for a message for his fans, he said: "I don't really have a message right now. I'm sorry. But I'm incredibly grateful for the support I've had all year. I wouldn't have made it through this year without them."