Formula 1

Norris on pole, Verstappen 17th after destructive Brazil F1 qualifying

by Josh Suttill
4 min read

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Lando Norris emerged with pole position from a thrilling Brazilian Grand Prix qualifying session that featured five red flags and a nightmare for his Formula 1 championship rival Max Verstappen.

Norris struggled for confidence early in qualifying, narrowly avoiding a Q1 exit, with McLaren team-mate Oscar Piastri looking more comfortable.

But the session came to Norris as the track dried out enough for intermediate running in Q2 and Q3 despite five incidents interrupting running.

The fourth of those - Fernando Alonso putting his Aston Martin into the wall on the exit of Mergulho - halted Q3 with seven minutes on the clock.

At that point Norris had a 0.499-second advantage over a surprise nearest challenger: the Williams of Alex Albon.

But once it was restarted, the session was soon paused again with Albon losing control into the Senna S, smashing up his FW46 and leaving his Williams team with an intense repair job - especially given team-mate Franco Colapinto also damaged his car with a crash in Q1.

Once Albon's car was removed, Q3 resumed for a crunch set of laps in the final minutes with Norris coming out on top.

He delivered a 1m23.405s to take an all-important pole position, 0.173s ahead of George Russell's Mercedes, which he'll share the front row with.

Disaster for Verstappen

Verstappen was denied a chance to escape Q2, as he had to slow for double waved yellows for Lance Stroll's crash at Turn 3.

The red flag wasn't thrown until slightly later, with Stroll still trying to recover his Aston Martin back onto track initially. That infuriated Verstappen, who was dumped in 12th with team-mate Sergio Perez 13th. The champion is also set for a five-place grid penalty for an engine change.

"If the car hits the wall, it needs to be a straight red flag. I don't understand why it needs to take 30-40 seconds for the red flag to come out," Verstappen told Sky Sports F1.

"Honestly it's so stupid anyway to talk about."

Tsunoda third for RB

While it was a miserable session for Red Bull's senior team, its sister team RB was third and fifth with Yuki Tsunoda earning his best-ever qualifying in F1 and team-mate Liam Lawson an equally impressive fifth.

Esteban Ocon's Alpine split them in fourth - his best qualifying of 2024 - ahead of Lawson, Charles Leclerc's Ferrari and Albon.

Sprint race polesitter Piastri locked up and ran wide at Turn 1 on his crucial lap, leaving him eighth, only ahead of crashers Alonso and Stroll.

Valtteri Bottas was 11th fastest in qualifying - his second-best of the year, only bettered by his sole Q3 appearance of the year at Shanghai.

He was ahead of both the Red Bulls and Carlos Sainz - the cause of the second red flag as he also lost control of his Ferrari at Turn 3 - and Pierre Gasly's Alpine.

Colapinto crashes, Hamilton out in Q1

Conditions were trickest at the start of Q1 with multiple drivers making errors. Just two minutes into the session, Lawson ran off down the escape road at Juncao before rejoining. 

Colapinto lost control of his Williams out of the Senna S and ended up in the barriers halfway through Q1. Considering Albon's car is also in need of repair, Colapinto may worry Williams will favour Albon's rebuild given there's limited time before the race start which has been brought forward.

That caused the first red flag of qualifying, bringing a premature end to Colapinto's qualifying and consigning him to a third successive Q1 exit. 

While he was inside the top 10 when he crashed once the session resumed he was shuffled down to 18th place. 

Lewis Hamilton was the big-name casualty in Q1 as a miserable weekend for Mercedes continued. 

He was knocked out in 16th place, four tenths away from safety and over two seconds slower than Russell. 

"I don’t have any hopes for the race, just going to do what I can do," Hamilton said after qualifying.

"With the car I have right now it’s the worst that I’ve ever driven so probably won’t be going very far with it.

"But yeah maybe I’ll start from the pitlane, I don't know. It’s undriveable."

Both Haas cars were also eliminated with stand-in driver Ollie Bearman once again besting Nico Hulkenberg. 

Bearman was 17th ahead of Colapinto, Hulkenberg and Zhou Guanyu who was the slowest driver in F1 qualifying for the sixth consecutive weekend.

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