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Lando Norris claimed pole position for the São Paulo Grand Prix, his championship ambitions backed with a real statement of intent having already secured victory in the sprint race earlier on Saturday.
His success was given added impetus as both his title rivals, Oscar Piastri and Max Verstappen, suffered disappointment in Brazil. Piastri’s championship hopes took yet another blow as he crashed out of the sprint and qualified only in fourth, while Verstappen could manage only 16th on the grid.
Verstappen had already dropped points to Norris after he was fourth in the sprint for Red Bull and the British driver now has the chance to put genuine daylight on both his rivals. At this race last year Verstappen came back from 17th to win but that was in the wet and when he was not suffering from a compromised setup. The world champion now needs an immense drive on Sunday to keep his chances alive.
With the sprint victory Norris has extended his lead over Piastri to nine points, while Verstappen has dropped back to 39 points behind the British driver, with 108 still on the table from the remaining four meetings, including one more sprint race.
Kimi Antonelli qualified a superb second for Mercedes with Charles Leclerc in third for Ferrari. However, his teammate Lewis Hamilton could manage only a disappointing 13th.
The woes of his competitors stand in stark contrast to Norris, for whom the victory comes on the back of his dominant pole-to-flag win in Mexico as he continues what has been an enormously strong and consistent run of form. It demonstrates he is now very much more comfortable with a car that early in the season he had struggled with, not suited to the lack of feel for grip through the front axle. His pole lap, a one-off shot he had to make, was immense and flawless as he looks to take the title by the scruff of the neck.
Piastri had looked in better form in qualifying but damage had already been done in the morning’s sprint race. Norris led from pole to the flag at the Autódromo José Carlos Pace in a race that opened in damp conditions after earlier rain that made the track tricky and which caught Piastri out as he crashed after losing grip after putting his wheel on to a kerb. It was an enormously costly error and not the first in recent races for the Australian.
Verstappen had been unhappy with his car all weekend and described it as “completely broken” on Friday. He simply did not hook up a lap in qualifying, adrift in the car with no explanation as to quite what was wrong. He was knocked out in Q1 for the first time since the Russian GP in 2021.
“I have zero grip,” he said with no little frustration. The team had adapted their setup post-sprint in an effort to find better pace but it appears they had simply gone in the wrong direction in an attempt to fix their cars’ instability over the bumps of Interlagos. Red Bull’s team principal, Laurent Mekies, admitted the team had taken a risk with their setup looking for performance that had not paid off.
Verstappen said: “I don’t understand how it can be this bad, that’s the first thing to understand at this moment.”
Piastri will be most concerned that his touch increasingly appears to have deserted him. He has endured a run of difficult races, including crashing out in Baku and being off the pace in the US and Mexico, that has seen Norris overtake him in the championship standings. He made an error at the last sprint in Austin, too optimistic heading into turn one and struck Norris taking them both out of the race, with his confidence having taken a bruising just as the season reaches its crucial phase. He too needs to come back strongly on Sunday.
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Leclerc had opened the running with the quickest early pace in Q3 but while Norris made a small error, locking-up on his first run in turn one, Piastri found real pace when he needed it to take the top spot with a time of 1min 9.897sec, the best lap the Australian had yet delivered.
Norris had real work to do for the final laps from tenth place and hit the first two sectors hard. Fearsomely quick, he took provisional pole as Piastri followed him out. The Australian could not improve however and while Antonelli delivered an immense run for second place, Norris had the top spot with a 1min 9.511sec lap.
A dramatic sprint race was also marked by an horrific accident for local São Paulo boy Gabriel Bortoleto. On the final lap the Brazilian lost the rear looking to go up the inside heading into turn one and speared into the barriers on the inside which catapulted him airborne into the barriers on the opposite side of the circuit with an enormously heavy impact.
Bortoleto emerged from the car and was taken to the medical centre. He was checked up and later pronounced unhurt, with Sauber stating: “ Following precautionary checks at the circuit’s Medical Centre, we are pleased to report that Gabriel Bortoleto is ok and uninjured”. However his car was too damaged to be repaired in time for qualifying.
