McLaren’s Piastri takes Sao Paulo sprint pole, Norris completes team one-two

Oscar Piastri led Lando Norris to a McLaren one-two in sprint qualifying at the Sao Paulo Grand Prix, an event broadcast live on 5 Live and the BBC Sport website. Norris’ championship rival, Max Verstappen, could only achieve fourth place in his Red Bull, finishing behind Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc. Verstappen, who will incur a five-place grid penalty for Sunday’s main grand prix, begins the weekend 47 points ahead of Norris in the championship standings. The outcome of sprint qualifying offers Norris an opportunity to reduce Verstappen’s points lead during Saturday’s sprint event, which awards eight points for a win, seven for second, and so on down to eighth position. However, Norris stated he was not concentrating on the championship. “I hate this question so much,” he said. “I’m just going to race. I don’t care about where he qualified. “For me it’s just focus on my own job. It’s the same question every time. It doesn’t matter. If he’s first or last, I will do the best I can.” Norris established the fastest time on the initial runs in the final shootout, recording a lap of one minute 8.928 seconds, with Piastri just under 0.3 seconds slower. But Norris was unable to improve on his second lap, and Piastri narrowly surpassed him by just 0.029 seconds. “A big improvement compared to early today,” Norris said. “We were struggling a lot (in practice). A little bit surprised we were so quick today, but a pleasant one. A good lap. I made too many mistakes on my final lap and just pitted.” Verstappen was 0.320 seconds adrift in fourth place, and only 0.056 seconds slower than Leclerc. Verstappen commented that bumps on the recently resurfaced track had exposed a significant weakness of the Red Bull car. “As soon as we went into qualifying, it looked like we were definitely off,” he said.”A bit difficult on the bumps. They did the resurfacing but I think they made it worse to drive. It is extremely bumpy everywhere and that is not good for our car. “On all the bumpy areas the car is jumping around a lot and it is costing me quite a bit of lap time.”For tomorrow, when you are already quite a bit off over one lap, we are not particularly the strongest in the race. There is some weather around that can come but not for the sprint maybe.” Leclerc indicated he did not anticipate being able to challenge the McLarens in the race, despite Ferrari having won the two most recent grands prix. “I’m happy because we have maximised the result for today,” Leclerc said. “McLaren are so fast. We are a little bit on the back foot this weekend and it will be important to take strong points.”We will give it everything to put a challenge on them but seeing the pace they have shown today I think they were particularly strong.” Ferrari’s Carlos Sainz qualified fifth for the sprint, ahead of Mercedes’ George Russell. The second Mercedes, driven by Lewis Hamilton, was eliminated in the second session and will commence the sprint from 11th position. “Pretty bad, but same as every qualifying for me,” Hamilton said. “I just don’t have any confidence in the car, so a big struggle for me.”The ride is pretty bad on the track for everyone. The track has been resurfaced and they’ve not done a particularly good job. The thing is hopping through all the corners, so very difficult to drive.” Verstappen’s team-mate, Sergio Perez, qualified in 13th. Briton Oliver Bearman qualified tenth for Haas, two places ahead of regular driver Nico Hulkenberg, as he filled in for Kevin Magnussen after the Dane fell ill. Following sprint qualifying, the team confirmed that Bearman would drive for the entire race weekend.