Norris on pole as he continues perfect run at Sao Paulo
Lando Norris has secured pole position for tomorrow's Brazilian Grand Prix. The McLaren driver thereby continues a great weekend for him as his Championship rivals fail to bring opposition. Kimi Antonelli was second fastest in qualifying, topping Leclerc who was third.
Qualifying started a bit later than scheduled as track repairs were necessary to guarantee safety. Both Williams though seemed very eager to go and were waiting at the end of the pitlane for more than 5 minutes before the green light, only to eventually do an installation lap and return to the pit straight away.
The Haas cars were then the first ones to put a time on the board, soon topped by Lawson and then Norris going fastest. While Verstappen ended up several tenths down on the McLaren, Hamilton had a strong lap and went fastest a minute later, followed by Hulkenberg going third fastest.
When the Mercedes came out as the last drivers to do so, Antonelli took over the top spot, but that too didn't last long as Bearman did better still. Piastri followed that up by going second fastest, followed by further improvements for both Aston Martins on softs after they had done their first runs on medium compound tyres.
5 minutes from the end of Q1 Verstappen as on track to seek an improvement but he failed to find any, leaving him 16th after fighting oversteer at Turn 8. While Aston Martin don't understand why their car works well at Sao Paulo, Verstappen and Red Bull are at odds with the setup of their machine.
After two slow laps, Verstapppen tried again and did improve, but insufficiently to make it through. That meant elimination for both Red Bulls in Q1 with Verstappen 16th and Tsunoda 19th. Bortoleto didn't compete as his car wasn't repaired in time. Colapinto and Ocon were out as well.
Q2 saw Williams again take to the track first, this time not returning to the pits but straight on it for a flying lap on soft tyres. Still, after Albon crossed the finish line, Sainz opted to abort his flying lap and return to the pits to do a race-like pitstop to get going again.
Leclerc and Piastri were next up the road, followed by nearly everyone with the Mercedes duo again going out last. When everybody had set a lap, Bearman topped the timing sheet, outperforming Antonelli, Piastri, Russell, Norris, the Racing Bulls, Alonso, Albon and Hamilton in 10th.
Alonso kicked off the second series of laps with a laptime that wasn't better than his earlier time. It already means that improvements from Gasly and Hulkenberg ejected him into the elimination zone. The improvements also put Hamilton under pressure with the Briton eventually also unable to find enough time to make it through. He got eliminated along with both Williams and both Aston Martins.
The final part of qualifying was kicked off with Bearman who once again had an impressive lap. Leclerc though got ahead and Piastri did even better, albeit all with tiny margins. Antonelli and Russell slotted in 4th and 5th with Norris only 10th after a lockup at Turn 1 that cost him precious time.
As Russell continued complaining he didn't feel comfortable on the soft tyres, replays showed how Antonelli had a big slide at Turn 8, ruining what could have been a much better time than 4th.
2 minutes and 26 seconds remained on the clock when Bearman starting his second attempt, again out first on track, and gain followed by Leclerc. The Ferrari driver immediately improved his first sector by more than a tenth and eventually ended up taking provisional pole. That was only until Norris crossed the line as the McLaren driver found another 2 tenths on Leclerc.
Piastri lost time in the second sector and didn't improve, leaving him to start from 4th after Antonelli finally found the pace that had been there all along to take second on tomorrow's starting grid. Russell ended up 5th after completing his final attempt on medium tyres.
