Lando Norris claimed a pivotal pole position at Interlagos while Max Verstappen will start the Brazilian Grand Prix in 17th after the most dramatic of qualifying sessions in a sodden Sao Paulo featuring five red flags.
Lance Stroll was the third driver to cause a stoppage by losing control at turn three after Franco Colapinto and Carlos Sainz earlier in the morning, but the Aston Martin‘s crash with a minute to go in Q2 condemned Verstappen to 12th with no chance to improve before his grid penalty is applied.
Verstappen was ninth when Stroll hit the wall but a delay in showing the red flags (in line with the Sainz and Colapinto incidents) saw the Dutchman pushed into the elimination zone without getting the opportunity to reply.
A furious Verstappen told Sky Sports F1: “It’s just the car hits the wall it needs to be straight red, I don’t know why it needs to be 30, 40 seconds. It’s just b******t.”
“Honestly, I let it go, it’s so stupid anyway to talk about, it’s ridiculous.”
Sergio Perez also lost out with the Red Bulls sent out at the back of the queue after the first red flag in Q2 and the Mexican lambasted his team over team radio, as RB proved the surprise package of the day by almost locking out the second row of the grid.
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Norris‘ pole position time was over 14 seconds slower than Oscar Piastri‘s quickest lap in sprint qualifying and the Australian lines up in eighth for the main event after a costly error at the death.
Piastri locked up on his final flying lap after Alex Albon had a destructive crash with 211 seconds left in Q3, gingerly climbing into the medical car having kept his hands on the steering wheel when he hit the barriers at turn one following a rear lock-up.
Albon‘s red flag was the final and record-equalling fifth of a qualifying session that had already been postponed from Saturday, and took over 100 minutes to complete.
Piastri‘s error took him out of the reckoning and everyone else took advantage, as George Russell turned Mercedes‘ session around by somehow putting an unruly W15 onto the front row.
Yuki Tsunoda lines up third as Esteban Ocon split the RBs, with Charles Leclerc off the pace in sixth as the last driver apart from Piastri to finish Q3 with a car in one piece as Fernando Alonso also crashed out at turn 11.
Norris survives two major Brazilian GP qualifying scares
Norris stayed alive in Q1 by just two-tenths after Liam Lawson‘s late improvement knocked Hamilton out and left the title challenger in 15th, but with only Zhou Guanyu left to cross the line the McLaren driver survived with only some new stress wrinkles and potentially a soiled race suit.
The most hazardous session for drivers after hours of rain doused the track, the entire grid left the pit lane on wet tyres though that didn’t stop Lawson, then Zhou and Stroll all leaving the track while Russell and Sainz almost came to blows at one stage
But it was only a matter of time before there was a more serious incident. Franco Colapinto was the man to oblige when he drifted just outside the drier line at turn three and lost all grip, clanging the barriers with the front right of his Williams FW46 and bringing out the red flags.
That left both Mercedes, both Saubers and Alex Albon looking nervously at the weather radars as the drivers sat in the bottom five and Oliver Bearman was hastily wheeled back into the Haas garage seconds before the lights turned green for a second time in Q1 after initially opting for inters.
He was eliminated alongside Nico Hulkenberg, Hamilton, Zhou and Colapinto, and Carlos Sainz produced almost a carbon copy incident to halt Q2 with Norris again in the danger zone – though this time he hit the wall on the inside of turn three.
Initially the damage looked more serious than Colapinto‘s shunt and with more rain on the way and Verstappen firmly ensconced in the top 10, there was a danger of the title fight all but ending if Norris couldn’t go quicker when the session resumed.
However, Norris produced a champion’s response by topping the session and the pendulum swings away from Verstappen thanks to Stroll‘s misstep.
