The session at the Losail circuit was dominated by track limits transgressions, plus the drivers struggling for rear grip around the high-speed layout.
Verstappen posted a 1m23.778s on his first run in Q3, which turned out to be the pole time as he lost the rear of his RB19 going through Turn 5 on his second attempt.
Norris had already lost a time to track limits in Q1 and this occurred again on his first Q3 flier, where like Verstappen he went too wide at Turn 5.
He initially got to within 0.3s of Verstappen’s leading with his second Q3 attempt, but edging out too wide through the long Turn 10 left proved to be costly for Norris and he was dropped back to 10th.
Norris’s errors promoted Mercedes driver George Russell to second, initially ahead of Oscar Piastri and Lewis Hamilton, who had been second after the first Q3 runs but abandoned his second go after a wild oversteer moment at Turn 7 sent him off track.
But Piastri also suffered a late qualifying demotion when his best Q3 lap was deleted for exceeding track limits at Turn 14, which dropped him from third to sixth.
With Hamilton up to third, Fernando Alonso took fourth for Aston Martin ahead of Charles Leclerc, who also abandoned his second Q3 flier after needing two attempts to set a time on the first runs in the final segment as he went off at Turn 4 – a spot of repeated issue for the Ferrari driver throughout qualifying.
Source: Autosport