After a discreet 16th place in free practice, Max Verstappen made his superiority clear in the qualifying session for the São Paulo Formula 1 Grand Prix, obtaining pole position by a margin of around three tenths.
Qualification summary
The qualification began under the threat of rain in Q1, but it did not arrive at that time. This first phase of the session was led by George Russell (Mercedes), only 96 milliseconds ahead of Verstappen (Red Bull), with Charles Leclerc (Ferrari) in third.
There were no major surprises in the elimination zone. Yuki Tsunoda (AlphaTauri) was 16th, missing out on qualifying by 44 milliseconds, behind Pierre Gasly (Alpine). Towards the end, Esteban Ocon (Alpine) was at risk of elimination, but managed to escape the bottom 5, with the Frenchman relegating Tsunoda to 16th.
Daniel Ricciardo was 17th, meaning that AlphaTauri was out of the rest of the qualifying… as was Alfa Romeo, which had Valtteri Bottas in 18th and Guanyu Zhou in 20th. Logan Sargeant (Williams) was between them.
This was followed by Q2, in which the weather remained dry, but always with the threat of rain around. This time the lead was taken by Lando Norris (McLaren), who beat Verstappen by 0.141s. Sergio Pérez (Red Bull) achieved the third fastest time.
The last one to qualify was Lance Stroll (Aston Martin), with the tenth fastest time, 0.172s ahead of Nico Hülkenberg (Haas). It was the end of the line for the German and for Haas, whose other driver, Kevin Magnussen, was 14th.
Alpine also failed to advance, with Ocon in 12th and Gasly in 13th. Alexander Albon was the only representative of Williams and could not go beyond 15th place.
On a Friday when an orange weather alert will later be in effect in the São Paulo area, the wind increased in intensity and made the task very difficult for the drivers at the start of Q3.
The drivers quickly took to the track and Verstappen set the pace by clocking a time of 1m10.727s. The times were worse than those in Q1 and Q2, with Leclerc being the closest to the Dutchman, 0.294s behind. The Aston Martins of Stroll and Fernando Alonso followed, with Lewis Hamilton (Mercedes) in fifth.
Russell set the sixth fastest time ahead of Norris, and Carlos Sainz (Ferrari) settled for eighth. Pérez and Oscar Piastri (McLaren) were in ninth and tenth. The Australian did not set a time, following a track exit at turn 12.
When the situation was like this, the session ended up being interrupted with a red flag. Very dark and thick clouds were hovering around the Autódromo José Carlos Pace and the rain arrived… and strongly. Darkness took over Interlagos and, with the rain soaking the track and the wind making it very difficult to control the cars, there was nothing else to do but to interrupt and not resume the qualifying when there were less than five minutes left.
Results:
