Doha (AFP) - Oscar Piastri boosted his bid for a maiden drivers’ world championship on Saturday when he reduced McLaren team-mate Lando Norris’s lead to 22 points by winning the sprint race at the Qatar Grand Prix.

Driving with assurance after a fine start from pole position, the 24-year-old Australian delivered a cool drive reminiscent of his early-season domination to finish 4.951 seconds clear of Mercedes’ George Russell with Norris 1.3 seconds adrift in third.

Four-time champion Max Verstappen came home fourth for Red Bull ahead of team-mate Yuki Tsunoda and teenage rookie Kimi Antonelli in the second Mercedes.

The latter two were both handed five-second penalties for exceeding track limits.

Piastri’s third consecutive sprint race win at the Lusail International Circuit trimmed Norris’s lead while Verstappen dropped further behind, by a point, to 25 points behind the Briton.

It was Piastri’s first success since he won the Dutch Grand Prix on August 31 when he led the title race.

“It’s been good so far and everything went smoothly,” said Piastri.

“I’m happy so far and now just have to keep it rolling.”

Norris, who can win the title on Sunday if results go his way, said he had ignored the threat from the defending champion who finished fourth behind him.

“I never saw him,’ he said.

“Just George ahead…. I wasn’t looking behind. It felt like a lot of pushing and it will be a tough race tomorrow.”

Piastri explained his return to form as a recovery of pace and performance on the high-speed high-grip circuit that suited his style.

The dash began with only 16 cars on the grid and four in the pitlane – both Alpines, Aston Martin’s Lance Stroll and Lewis Hamilton (Ferrari) – as Piastri led away from a near-perfect start on pole to lead Russell and Norris.

Verstappen jumped Fernando Alonso (Aston Martin) and team-mate Tsunoda for third.

- Hamilton unhappy -

After noisy grumbles about his car on Friday, Verstappen appeared reborn and razor-sharp under the floodlights as he fought for a chance to attack Norris, but the Briton resisted and stayed out of reach.

The whole field was running on medium compound tyres for the 19 laps, rendering pit-stops out of use, and there was little close racing.

After nine laps Piastri led by 1.7 seconds ahead of Russell with Norris adrift by two seconds, but ahead of Verstappen by a similar margin.

The Dutchman began to reveal his frustrations.

“I’m constantly jumping, not only bouncing,” he reported, as he had during sprint qualifying when he forecast that the race would be a battle for survival.

As the tyres began to wear, Piastri stayed controlled in front, two seconds clear of Russell in an unchanged top five.

Russell’s former Mercedes team-mate Hamilton was less happy with his experience as he finished 17th for Ferrari and declared, on team radio, that he was surprised how bad his car felt to drive.

“Man, I don’t know how we’ve made the car worse than it was,” he said on team radio before referencing rear-end instability, porpoising, bouncing and severe understeer among his chief problems.

His Ferrari team-mate Charles Leclerc agreed and said he almost crashed early on before finishing a distant 13th.