Norris secures pole position for Sao Paulo Grand Prix as Verstappen endures shock exit in Q2

McLaren driver Lando Norris secured pole position in an incident-filled wet qualifying session for today’s Sao Paulo Grand Prix. F1Technical’s lead journalist Balazs Szabo reports on the postponed qualifying session.

Q1 – Shock exit for Hamilton

After the qualifying session had to be postponed yesterday due to the weather conditions, drivers were greeted by slightly more favourable conditions today.

The opening nine minutes saw drivers queue at the end of the pitlane as everyone wanted to head out quickly to assess the track conditions on Pirelli’s wet weather tyres.

There were a few incident early on with Liam Lawson dropping his RB onto the grass at the Juncao corner, but the New Zealander managed to get his car back on to the Interlagos track.

There was another brief yellow-flag for Yuki Tsunoda, who made the same error as his team-mate. However, the session was interrupted when Williams driver Franco Colapinto went off at the Curva do Sol, bringing out the red flag.

When the session was restarted, all drivers were quick again to hit the track, with all of them bolting on the blue-marked wet-weather tyres.
Several drivers struggled to switch on their tyres, including Lewis Hamilton, who endured a shock early exit at the end of Q1.

Championship contender Lando Norris made it out of Q1, but only fractionally as he ended up 15th on the leaderboard.

Ferrari junior Oliver Bearman, who stood in to replace the unwell Kevin Magnussen for the Sao Paulo Grand Prix weekend, took 16th. His team-mate Nico Hulkenberg also failed to make it out of Q1, with Kick Sauber’s Zhou Guanyu rounding out the field.

Knocked out: Lewis Hamilton, Oliver Bearman, Franco Colapinto, Nico Hulkenberg and Zhou Guanyu.

Q2 – Sainz crashes out at Senna S

The second qualifying segment kicked off in slightly improved track conditions, with no more rain falling.

McLaren’s Oscar Piastri went out straight for the intermediate rubber, while all other drivers fitted wet-weather tyres for the start of Q2.
While the majority of the field completed a lap on the blue-walled tyres, Piastri led the way with a big margin, having set a time of 1m27.141s.

The Australian’s time indicated that the crossover was reached, which urged the others to come in for a new set of intermediates. Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc became the last driver to pit for the green-walled rubber.

Proving conditions are still treacherous despite now moving to intermediates, Mercedes driver George Russell had a low-speed spin at Bico de Pato.

Just moments later, there was another incident as Carlos Sainz made a heavy contact with the barriers at Turn 2.

The replays showed that the Spaniard was attempting to pick the power up into Turn 2 and the rear of his Ferrari came around before clattering the wall. The right left suspension, rear wing and potentially gearbox picked up a significant amount of damage.

When the session was restarted, everyone was in a rush to head back onto the track. Aston Martin’s Fernando Alonso set the timing pages alight, by setting the quickest lap.

However, just moments later, Lando Norris put in a great effort to go top, with Leclerc and Ocon having also made improvements.

With less than a minute left on the clock, Lance Stroll lost control of his Astom Martin AMR24, crashing with his car into the barriers at Turn 3. The Canadian’s incident was a mirror of Colapinto’s, but he did far more damage to the rear of the car.

The incident was devastating for championship leader Max Verstappen as he found himself in the drop zone just as his team-mate Sergio Perez.

Knocked out: Valtteri Bottas, Max Verstappen, Sergio Perez, Carlos Sainz, Pierre Gasly.
Q3 – Alonso brings out the red flag

When the lights went green, Norris looked the most comfortable on the track as he put in a 1m25.631s to go to the top from Piastri.
However, Esteban Ocon and Alexander Albon relegated Norris atop the leaderboard, but the Briton bounced back with a lap of 1m24.158s to go top again.

Just six minutes left on the clock, there was another big incident as Fernando Alonso went off at Mergulho.

The replays showed that Alonso’s AMR24 snapped without warning and he went sideways into the barriers, rear first. Aston Martin will be very busy as they need to repair both cars in a very limited That will almost certainly be a gearbox and engine change at the very least.

Just as drivers started their flying lap, Williams driver Alexander Albon caused the fifth red flag of the session after smashing three corners of his FW46 at Turn 1.

The replays showed that as Albon hit the brakes for the first corner, he lost the rear of his Williams. The London-born driver reported on the radio that his brakes might have failed, but his race engineer answered that he could not see any failure on the data.

When the action resumed, Norris went fastest with a time of 1m23.405s to go 0.173s faster than what Mercedes driver George Russell managed.

RB drivers Yuki Tsunoda and Liam Lawson took a sensational result for the Faenza-based outfit, securing P3 and P5 on the grid, with Alpine racer Esteban Ocon slotting in between the Japanese and the Kiwi driver.

Leclerc took sixth for Ferrari, with Albon clinging on to his seventh place, albeit he is expected to start from the pit lane after his huge, high-speed crash.