{"id":16371,"date":"2025-11-28T16:11:12","date_gmt":"2025-11-28T14:11:12","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/jhb-webdevelopers\/channelafrica\/news\/piastri-fastest-in-sole-qatar-grand-prix-practice\/"},"modified":"2026-02-27T16:31:33","modified_gmt":"2026-02-27T14:31:33","slug":"piastri-fastest-in-sole-qatar-grand-prix-practice","status":"publish","type":"news","link":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/news\/piastri-fastest-in-sole-qatar-grand-prix-practice\/","title":{"rendered":"Piastri fastest in sole Qatar Grand Prix practice"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class=\"x_elementToProof\">The Australian lapped the Lusail desert circuit with a best time of one minute 20.924 seconds, with championship leader Norris 0.058 slower and running wide at the final corner late on.<\/div>\n<div class=\"x_elementToProof\"><\/div>\n<div class=\"x_elementToProof\">Aston Martin&#8217;s Fernando Alonso was third with Williams&#8217; Carlos Sainz fourth and Racing Bulls&#8217; Isack Hadjar fifth fastest. Red Bull&#8217;s four-times world champion Max Verstappen, the third title contender and a two-times winner in Qatar, was sixth and complaining about his car &#8216;jumping&#8217; and the steering being &#8216;weird&#8217;.<\/div>\n<div class=\"x_elementToProof\"><\/div>\n<div class=\"x_elementToProof\">Norris leads Piastri and Verstappen by 24 points with two rounds remaining and the Briton could seal his first championship on Sunday if results go his way. Friday&#8217;s session was the sole practice because Qatar is a sprint weekend, with qualifying for that 100km 25-lap Saturday race taking the place of the usual second practice.<\/div>\n<div class=\"x_elementToProof\"><\/div>\n<div class=\"x_elementToProof\">Williams had Alex Albon in seventh place with Ferrari&#8217;s Charles Leclerc eighth, Aston Martin&#8217;s Lance Stroll ninth and Mercedes&#8217; Kimi Antonelli 10th.<\/div>\n<div class=\"x_elementToProof\"><\/div>\n<div class=\"x_elementToProof\">&#8211;Reuters&#8211;<\/div>\n","protected":false},"featured_media":16372,"template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false},"news-type":[20],"class_list":["post-16371","news","type-news","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","news-type-sport","entry"],"acf":{"short_description":"Oscar Piastri led McLaren teammate and Formula One title rival Lando Norris at the top of the timesheets in sole practice for the Qatar Grand Prix on Friday","published_date":"2025-11-28 00:00:00","news_description":"Oscar Piastri led McLaren teammate and Formula One title rival Lando Norris at the top of the timesheets in sole practice for the Qatar Grand Prix on Friday","form_embed":"","author":"","image_caption":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/16371","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/news"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/16371\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":20208,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/16371\/revisions\/20208"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/16372"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=16371"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"news-type","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news-type?post=16371"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}