Hamilton comfortably fastest in Interlagos qualifying

Lewis Hamilton secured pole position for Formula 1’s final sprint race of the year at Interlagos after dominating Friday qualifying.

Hamilton topped the opening two segments of qualifying and was two and a half tenths of a second clear of F1 championship leader Max Verstappen after the first runs in Q3.

Hamilton stretched his advantage over the Red Bull driver to 0.438s with his final effort of a 1m07.934s, going fastest in qualifying for the first time since Turkey last month.

The seven-time world champion will have to serve a five-place grid penalty for Sunday’s grand prix after his Mercedes team opted to fit a new internal combustion engine, but Hamilton will start Saturday’s sprint race from the front.

Verstappen was unable to match Hamilton’s pace throughout qualifying but did pip the second Mercedes of Valtteri Bottas to a place on the front row alongside his championship rival.

Verstappen’s Red Bull team-mate Sergio Perez was fourth fastest, just 0.011s away from Bottas.

The top five was completed by AlphaTauri’s Pierre Gasly for the second successive qualifying session, with Carlos Sainz once again taking sixth for Ferrari ahead of his team-mate Charles Leclerc.

Leclerc had to survive a Q1 track limits deletion that left him needing a late effort to secure a place in Q2, on his way to qualifying seventh ahead of the McLarens of Lando Norris and Daniel Ricciardo.

Charles Leclerc has his lap time deleted for track limits

Back to the drawing board for the Monegasque driver#BrazilGP 🇧🇷 #F1 pic.twitter.com/TkN6pFn4KF

— Formula 1 (@F1) November 12, 2021

Fernando Alonso qualified in 10th place and denied his Alpine team-mate Esteban Ocon a place in Q3.

Ocon was 11th ahead of Aston Martin’s Sebastian Vettel and F1 rookie Yuki Tsunoda, whose run of three successive Q3 appearances came to an end.

The Alfa Romeos of Kimi Raikkonen and Antonio Giovinazzi qualified in 14th and 15th places respectively,

Aston Martin driver Lance Stroll’s 100% record of Q1 eliminations at Interlagos continued as he was knocked out in 16th place, 0.065s away from preventing a fourth straight Q1 exit.

George Russell’s record of never being outqualified by a Williams team-mate ended in Q1 when Nicholas Latifi pipped Russell to 17th place on the grid by 0.056s.

Nicholas Latifi outqualifies team mate George Russell for the first-time! 👏#BrazilGP 🇧🇷 #F1 pic.twitter.com/eJFxpEhT0E

— Formula 1 (@F1) November 12, 2021

Haas duo Mick Schumacher and Nikita Mazepin will form the back row of the sprint race grid.

Qualifying Results