The Lusail International Circuit sits on the outskirts of Doha – opened in 2004, it has mainly featured in the Moto GP championship and only hosted Formula 1 for the first time in 2021. After a year’s break as the circuit underwent extensive renovations that saw the facilities upgraded and its capacity increase from 8,000 fans to 52,000, it returned to the calendar in 2023.

While the first edition of the grand prix was dominated by Lewis Hamilton, who finished over 25 seconds up the road from title-rival Max Verstappen, it’s Verstappen who’s finished out front at the last two Qatar Grands Prix. For the third consecutive year, this event is also a Sprint, the final one of the season.

The lap itself is full of medium/high-speed corners that flow from one into the next and, with its very minimal braking demands, we’ve seen teams opt for medium-to-high downforce configurations here in the past – enough to optimise cornering and manage the tyres effectively, without costing much down the main straight.

That run with DRS into turn 1 is the only true overtaking opportunity, although moves can take until turns 2 or 3 to be fully completed, so maximising that is critical to making progress over the sprint or grand prix. Moves can also be made into the lowest speed corner of turn 6, still taken at over 100km/h, or even through the flowing, flat-out 12-14 complex if a driver’s feeling brave.

Characteristic Considerations

High speeds = high load & high G

The high average speed of the lap around Lusail and the combination of medium-high speed cornering back-to-back can wreak havoc not only on the tyres (which we’ll come to) but also the drivers themselves.

The highest speed corners of turns 12 through 14 see the drivers sustaining over 275km/h throughout the triple right-hander, and therefore pulling around 4.5G. But even before that final sector, the sheer level of higher speed cornering around the lap is physically demanding on the drivers which can see them really feeling the effects post-race.

In the past, the combination of that with the heat in the Qatari desert has left a number unwell, particularly at the 2023 edition where an 18-lap limit on the stint length during the grand prix saw drivers putting in qualifying laps throughout. Changes to the scheduling of this grand prix in this calendar and the introduction of the option for a heat hazard to be declared if necessary will mitigate the chances of a repeat of that again, but it’s still going to be a far from easy grand prix.

Speed, heat & wear = Limited tyre life

This circuit is perhaps one of the most punishing on the tyres all season. It exerts similar levels of stress on the Pirelli rubber as Suzuka, yet also under high temperatures and high humidity which can see the stress combine over thermal factors, physical wear via graining on the smooth surface, and the high lateral loads.

It’s what Pirelli found to have led to front-left tyre failures for Lewis Hamilton and Carlos Sainz in last year’s Qatar Grand Prix, as the circuit gave rise to a “peculiar” situation, in Pirelli’s words.

Despite the stress it places on the tyres, last year there was no real drop off in performance as a consequence of that which saw the majority of drivers running long on the medium to open the race, waiting for a safety car to box under, which eventually came on lap 35.

That pushed the tyres to, or beyond, their limit of wear which, as we saw for Hamilton and Sainz, made them vulnerable to failure.

To avoid a repeat of that this year, Pirelli, F1 and the FIA have come together to limit the number of laps each tyre set can complete – which will be counted cumulatively over each session of the weekend. The aim is to err on the side of caution and prevent any failures of the tyres at this high speed circuit.

Track limits a talking point

With fairly expansive asphalt run-off around the circuit, playing with track limits can be tempting for the drivers and can be tricky come qualifying, as the limits are pushed as far as possible.

To help with that at key corners this year, the FIA have added further gravel traps/strips or extended the existing ones at the exit of turn 6, turn 10, turn 14 and turn 16. With the gravel now pulled closer to the racing line, especially in turn 14, going wide will become even more costly as the drivers will receive an instant consequence.

Get that wrong though and the drivers can find themselves beached fairly easily and out of a session even if there’s actually minimal damage to their car, making avoiding them paramount not only for the validity of a lap but also seeing the end of a session and maximising track time.

Bringing that gravel back onto the track surface and even the racing line is not uncommon here either – resetting the track condition and creating a hazard for other drivers behind, but also increasing the likelihood of an intervention to allow for it to be swept away again.

Track evolution

Gravel isn’t the only debris the drivers have to worry about getting on track and resetting the track conditions here. Given the circuit’s desert setting, sand blowing over the track is common – influencing track evolution. To prevent this as much as possible, the circuit has several areas of artificial grass around it to gather the sand before it hits the asphalt but even so, it can’t be dealt with completely.

The Compounds

Given the exceptionally high demands this event places on the tyres, Pirelli have kept their allocation at the hardest end of the compound range – a choice in line with every past edition of the Qatar Grand Prix.

It means the C1 will be the hard, the C2 will be the medium and the C3 will be the soft, but interestingly it’s only the fourth time all season that this range has been selected. Its first outing as a trio was in Suzuka where the hardness of the compound range combined with its improved resistance to graining for this season resulted in something of a processional race, even with the high-speed corners and high-stress of the lap, as the cold weather offset their impact on tyre life.

In Bahrain however, their second run of the season, their use was much more in line with Pirelli’s expectations. All three compounds completed maximum stints of 25 or more laps over that grand prix, meaning this weekend’s limit is well within the life we’ve seen from those compounds in the past.

We’re unlikely to see the soft make an appearance during either the sprint or grand prix here this weekend, simply because the softer compound suffers too much of a performance drop-off over successive laps. It makes the medium and hard the compounds most likely to be used for the race, and expect the teams to retain at least one brand new set for their opening stint of the grand prix to allow them to run all the way to their maximum life and keep their strategic options open.

The Weather

As is typical for this event, the weather is going to be warm, humid and hazy once again. Unsurprisingly, that means no threat of rain over all three days and instead temperatures between 21-26°C at the session times with light winds.

The Qatar Grand Prix begins with Free Practice 1 at 16:30 local time on Friday November 28th. The rest of the timings for the weekend are as follows (all in local time):

• FP1: Friday 28th November, 16:30-17:30
• Sprint Qualifying: Friday 28th November, 20:30-21:14
• Sprint: Saturday 29th November, 17:00-18:00
• Qualifying: Saturday 29th November, 21:00-22:00
• Qatar Grand Prix: Sunday 30th November, 19:00