Lando Norris will start from the front in the Sprint race of the São Paulo Formula 1 Grand Prix, after being the fastest in the Interlagos Sprint Shootout. The session was interrupted with a red flag.
Qualifying summary
In Q1, Max Verstappen (Red Bull) completed the first flying lap, but was soon surpassed by Carlos Sainz (Ferrari), who in turn was even faster than Lewis Hamilton (Mercedes). Kevin Magnussen (Haas) also showed competitiveness in this phase, being in the top five.
Less than ten minutes into the session, Lance Stroll (Aston Martin), Guanyu Zhou (Alfa Romeo), Alexander Albon (Williams), Yuki Tsunoda (AlphaTauri), and Logan Sargeant (Williams) were in the elimination zone. Oscar Piastri (McLaren) and Esteban Ocon (Alpine) were at risk of being eliminated if any of these five rivals improved, in 14th and 15th place, respectively.
And shortly after, disaster struck for Ocon. The Frenchman not only was overtaken by Tsunoda, but also lost control of his Alpine at the exit of the Senna S, collided with Fernando Alonso (Aston Martin) passing by, and crashed into the barriers. Qualifying ended for both due to damage to their cars and a red flag.
Before the interruption, the bottom five places were occupied by Ocon, Stroll, Zhou, Albon, and Sargeant, while Lando Norris (McLaren) had just moved up to second place, just behind Verstappen.
With the end of Q1 after the red flag, Q2 followed. One elimination was already known: Alonso, who due to the damage suffered in the incident with Ocon could not return to the track, even though he had reached the second phase, and thus was relegated to 15th place on the grid for the Sprint race.
Q2 started a little later than planned due to the resolution of Ocon’s incident. Verstappen took the lead with the first flying laps, ahead of Pérez and Norris… who was overtaken by teammate Piastri and Nico Hülkenberg (Haas).
While Verstappen improved even further, the drivers were fighting for one of the ten spots in Q3, and in the final minutes, several drivers showed potential to improve and aim for a position among the top ten.
After the good pace shown up to that point, Haas could not avoid elimination, with Magnussen in 11th and Hülkenberg in 12th. The Danish driver was 51 milliseconds away from advancing, with Tsunoda being the last one to qualify. Pierre Gasly (Alpine) was 13th ahead of Valtteri Bottas (Alfa Romeo), and as we mentioned, Alonso finished in 15th without setting a time.
In Q3, timed laps only appeared in the last two minutes, with Norris standing out against Verstappen by only 61 milliseconds in the only attempt. Pérez finished third, followed by the Mercedes of George Russell and Hamilton.
Tsunoda guaranteed sixth place ahead of the best Ferrari, Charles Leclerc. Daniel Ricciardo (AlphaTauri), Sainz (Ferrari), and Piastri completed the top ten in that order.
Results:
