Oscar Piastri earned pole position with an excellent
last-gasp lap in Sprint qualifying for the Brazilian Grand Prix at Interlagos
on Friday.
His McLaren team-mate
Lando Norris had dominated the majority of the session, but Piastri’s final lap
in SQ3 put him ahead of his colleague at the crucial moment, with Charles
Leclerc taking third and World Championship leader Max Verstappen set to line
up fourth.
Oscar Piastri takes pole for Sao Paulo Sprint at
Interlagos
As ever with Sprint qualifying, the sessions are shorter and
tyres are mandated, with medium tyres only in the 12 minutes of SQ1 as the
drivers went around an overcast Interlagos to start with.
The newly-resurfaced track was likely to ramp up quickly as
the session progressed, too, with only one practice session having taken place
on it beforehand in the day.
Both Aston Martin drivers were in the drop zone along with
the Sauber duo towards the end of SQ1, with Franco Colapinto having not set a
representative lap before the final flying runs, while Liam Lawson was in an
impressive P5 at the other end, 0.014s ahead of Max Verstappen after his first
run.
But with the clouds looming, the drivers took no chances in
getting out early for their final runs, with Sergio Perez going marginally
faster than team-mate Verstappen in SQ1, behind the McLaren of Piastri and
Ferrari of Charles Leclerc – before Norris went fastest by over seven tenths of
a second, laying down a gauntlet for the rest of the session.
At the other end, however, Fernando Alonso, Esteban Ocon,
Yuki Tsunoda, Lance Stroll and Zhou Guanyu would be the first to fall out of
contention.
SQ2 started with more medium tyres on the cars, but with the
clouds remaining dark over the track – albeit without rain having fallen –
there was a queue to get out of the pit lane to get a representative time on
the board.
A 1:09.063 from Norris was fastest once again from the
McLaren driver – by a healthy margin to the rest of the field in the first part
of the session, over four tenths ahead of the next-quickest driver in
Verstappen.
Verstappen was marginally quicker than Norris in the first
sector, but it was the twisting middle sector at Interlagos where Norris in his
McLaren seemed to have the upper hand in the early part of the session.
But towards the end, the Haas of Oliver Bearman – standing
in for the unwell Kevin Magnussen – put his car up through to SQ3 on his final
flying lap but the Red Bull of Sergio Perez would fall out of Sprint
qualifying, being told to pit as he would not get to start a final lap in time.
The Mercedes of Lewis Hamilton would also fall at the SQ2
hurdle, going out in 11th place – a tenth shy of Williams’ Alex Albon and
VCARB’s Liam Lawson also making it through.
Into SQ3, it was Norris who again set the benchmark with the
first flying lap, dipping into the 1:08s for the first time for any driver,
three tenths ahead of Piastri.
Bearman saw his effort deleted for a track limits infringement, but it was Piastri who pulled an excellent time out of the bag to get ahead of his team-mate at the last, a 1:08.899 to put himself 0.029s ahead of Norris at the close.
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