F1 Brazilian GP: Norris beats Verstappen to sprint shootout pole

Despite a first sector that was over two-tenths slower than the best efforts from the Red Bulls, Norris found time over the rest of the lap to clinch pole position for Saturday's shortened race - albeit with some evident bemusement after feeling that his lap was not particularly special.

McLaren put both cars onto the track first in the SQ3 session, with Oscar Piastri opening the final stage with a 1m11.189s benchmark, but Norris' eventual best put that in the shade.

The Briton endured a nervy wait as the Red Bulls and Mercedes looked far stronger in the opening sector; Verstappen looked to be good value to usurp the McLaren having been up on Norris' split by the end of the second sector, but could not maintain that pace.

Perez was then tracking in first having set the best opening split on his run, but fell behind team-mate Verstappen to collect third place on the sprint grid.

Norris was among a number of drivers who had received summons from the stewards over an alleged failure to follow the stewards' instructions on maximum lap time.

The Mexican was followed by George Russell and Lewis Hamilton; Russell briefly looked to be a contender for pole having matched Norris' middle sector, but lost four-tenths compared to his countryman in the final part of the lap.

Yuki Tsunoda impressed with a run to sixth on the grid, as Charles Leclerc could not deliver anything better than seventh on his sole lap of the session. This nonetheless put him above Daniel Ricciardo, as Carlos Sainz and Piastri completed the top 10.

Daniel Ricciardo, AlphaTauri AT04, Carlos Sainz, Ferrari SF-23 (Photo by: Simon Galloway / Motorsport Images)

Mercedes and McLaren had rescued themselves from the drop in SQ2 amid a quickfire flurry of final laps, at the expense of both Haas cars as Kevin Magnussen and Nico Hulkenberg had been well among the mix after the opening attempt.

Both AlphaTauris, along with Valtteri Bottas and Pierre Gasly, had decided to wait until the end to post their first and only laps of the session; Bottas had elevated himself into the top 10 at the expense of Russell.

But this preceded a number of improvements; Tsunoda and Ricciardo fired themselves well into the top 10 order - Ricciardo moving up to second for a brief spell - to push Hamilton and Norris into the bottom five.

The brace of Mercedes cars managed to extricate themselves from trouble despite setting not particularly competitive first sectors, as Norris also did so with a flourish as he placed himself on top of the pile.

Magnussen beat Hulkenberg by 0.025s to claim 11th on the sprint grid, while Gasly and Bottas were shuffled down to 13th and 14th.

The opening sprint qualifying stage had been brought to a premature end as Esteban Ocon clashed with Alonso at the Curva do Sol, which pitched the Alpine driver into the wall having started his final lap of the opening 12 minutes.

Ocon had been dumped into the drop zone and was gearing up to reverse that as the session entered its final minute, but suffered a snap of oversteer and careened into a slow-moving Alonso - who had peeled off the racing line to give Ocon room to pass.

Esteban Ocon, Alpine A523, crashes out of Shootout Max Verstappen, Red Bull Racing RB19 after contact with Fernando Alonso, Aston Martin AMR23 (Photo by: Simon Galloway / Motorsport Images)

Alonso had sustained too much damage in the impact, which precluded any running in SQ2 to consign him to an early exit.

The incident produced a red flag which froze the other, leaving Friday's qualifying star Lance Stroll stranded in 17th for the sprint grid having been unable to improve on his second attempt at a lap.

Zhou Guanyu was also eliminated at the first stage, while Alex Albon's attempt to break out of the bottom five was put on ice by the early conclusion to the session. Logan Sargeant was last of the runners, although felt that he had been impeded by a Haas during his second attempt.

Brazilian GP Sprint Qualifying results

Main Information Additional Data Driver Info

     

Driver Info			Main Information Additional Data
Cla	Driver	#		Chassis	Engine	Time	km/h
1	L. Norris McLaren	4		McLaren	Mercedes	1'10.622	219.653
2	M. Verstappen Red Bull Racing	1		Red Bull	Red Bull	+0.061 1'10.683	219.464
3	S. Perez Red Bull Racing	11		Red Bull	Red Bull	+0.134 1'10.756	219.237
4	G. Russell Mercedes	63		Mercedes	Mercedes	+0.235 1'10.857	218.925
5	L. Hamilton Mercedes	44		Mercedes	Mercedes	+0.318 1'10.940	218.669
6	Y. Tsunoda AlphaTauri	22		AlphaTauri	Red Bull	+0.397 1'11.019	218.426
7	C. Leclerc Ferrari	16		Ferrari	Ferrari	+0.455 1'11.077	218.247
8	D. Ricciardo AlphaTauri	3		AlphaTauri	Red Bull	+0.500 1'11.122	218.109
9	C. Sainz Ferrari	55		Ferrari	Ferrari	+0.504 1'11.126	218.097
10	O. Piastri McLaren	81		McLaren	Mercedes	+0.567 1'11.189	217.904
11	K. Magnussen Haas F1 Team	20		Haas	Ferrari	+1.105 1'11.727	216.270
12	N. Hulkenberg Haas F1 Team	27		Haas	Ferrari	+1.130 1'11.752	216.194
13	P. Gasly Alpine	10		Alpine	Renault	+1.200 1'11.822	215.983
14	V. Bottas Alfa Romeo	77		Alfa Romeo	Ferrari	+1.250 1'11.872	215.833
15	F. Alonso Aston Martin Racing	14		Aston Martin	Mercedes
16	E. Ocon Alpine	31		Alpine	Renault	+1.766 1'12.388	214.295
17	L. Stroll Aston Martin Racing	18		Aston Martin	Mercedes	+1.860 1'12.482	214.017
18	Z. Guanyu Alfa Romeo	24		Alfa Romeo	Ferrari	+1.875 1'12.497	213.972
19	A. Albon Williams	23		Williams	Mercedes	+1.903 1'12.525	213.890
20	L. Sargeant Williams	2		Williams	Mercedes	+1.993 1'12.615	213.625
View full results

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