Lando Norris will be on pole for Sunday’s Brazil Grand Prix after a brilliant Saturday at Interlagos.
The McLaren driver won the sprint race this morning and went fastest in all three sessions in qualifying.
Norris will start the Grand Prix on Sunday with a Drivers’ Championship lead of nine points ahead of teammate Oscar Piastri who crashed out in the sprint and finished fourth in qualifying.
Mercedes’ Kimi Antonelli will start P2 on Sunday ahead of the Ferrari of Charles Leclerc in third. Max Verstappen was eliminated in Q1 and will start the Grand Prix in 16th.
As far as F1 Saturdays go, this has been a brilliant one.
We had the drama of the sprint race with the four crashes, including from title challenge Oscar Piastri and a pulsating qualifying session that saw Max Verstappen eliminated in Q1 as Lando Norris went fastest in all three sessions.
The title leader has an excellent chance to strengthen his grip on a maiden Drivers’ Championship tomorrow as he starts on pole, three places ahead of teammate Piastri.
This has not been the debut season for Ferrari that Lewis Hamilton will have been dreaming of. He runs the very real risk of ending the season without finishing on the podium in a single race.
He failed to get into Q3 for the sixth time this season and will start tomorrow’s Grand Prix 13th on the grid.
Hamilton looked pretty crestfallen when he spoke to Sky Sports afterwards and had very little in the way of answers for his struggles.
Max Verstappen spoke to Sky Sports immediately after his Q1 exit, summing up his lack of feeling with the car.
“It was just bad. I couldn’t push at all. The car was all over the place, sliding around a lot. I had to under-drive it a lot to just not have a moment, and that doesn’t work in qualifying.”
He charged from 17th on the grid to win last year at Interlagos in the wet, but Verstappen wasn’t going to entertain that idea this time.
“We first have to analyze what is going on. I don’t really understand how it can be this bad. It’s more important to understand at the moment.”
