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SAO PAULO GP – Oscar Piastri beats Lando Norris to sprint pole by three hundredths with Max Verstappen fourth

Testing & Race Reports

Oscar Piastri has beaten his McLaren teammate Lando Norris by three hundredths to take sprint pole at the Sao Paulo Grand Prix. The Australian set an 08.899 on the soft tyre to go fastest and leapfrog his teammate right at the end of SQ3 taking the second sprint pole of his career.

Norris had looked the faster towards the end of sprint qualifying, before his teammate went fastest out of nowhere on the soft tyre. Charles Leclerc put his Ferrari third but he could not get close to the McLaren going over a quarter of a second off Piastri and two-tenths behind Norris.

Piastri secured pole by employing an alternate tyre strategy from Norris as McLaren had a decisive edge over the rest of the field. Norris chose new tyres for his first run and set the pace with an 08.928, with the Australian just under three-tenths slower on used tyres. Norris’ second run was on the same set of tyres, which now had three laps of usage on them, while Piastri switched to a new set.

Norris was quickest in the only practice session on Friday, and on the mediums in SQ1 and SQ2 as McLaren’s new scooped rear wing clearly gave the drivers confidence in the twisty middle sector. On the first run in SQ3 Norris was almost four-tenths faster, but on his final attempt, Piastri went three hundredths faster.

Piastri said, “I felt pretty comfortable at the start and then the grip was coming up a lot through the session. With the track this year it’s hard enough to see where you’re going, let alone trying to do a fast lap, so it’s challenging out there.”

“But happy to have qualified on pole for the Sprint. My first lap didn’t feel amazing and I knew there were a few places to improve and the second lap was good, and the tyres hung on. So very, very happy, so excited to be starting off P1.” In Qatar last year he converted his first sprint pole into victory.

Depending on what happens at the start, McLaren may deploy team orders to aid Norris’ bid in the Drivers’ Championship, especially with Verstappen in fourth. McLaren have said since the start of September that they will prioritise Norris and Saturday could provide the first opportunity for the team to show a clear preference towards the British driver during a race.

Norris’s championship rival Max Verstappen was fourth three-tenths off pole, but throughout Friday the Red Bull driver didn’t seem to look on the pace throughout Friday. Verstappen split the two Ferrari’s as he went nearly four hundredths faster than his former teammate Carlos Sainz.

This could be another key weekend in the title race between Verstappen and Norris, every point matters in this championship. The gap is forty-seven points with four races and two sprints remaining, a maximum of eight points are available in tomorrow’s sprint race.

McLaren also has the knowledge that for Sunday’s Grand Prix, the Red Bull driver will take a five-place grid penalty for an engine change. But Red Bull have been on the backfoot since the end of August and last weekend slipped to third in the constructors.

George Russell put his Mercedes sixth he was nearly a tenth behind Sainz, he was the only Silver Arrow in SQ3 as Lewis Hamilton missed out on the final part of sprint qualifying by a tenth. Russell put his Mercedes ahead of Pierre Gasly by eight hundredths.

Liam Lawson was eighth seven tenths ahead of Alex Albon, while Ollie Bearman will start his first sprint from tenth. Bearman replacing Kevin Magnussen for at least the sprint race after the Dane was unwell.

But the Englishman could have possibly gone faster with his lap deleted in SQ3 for track limits through the second part of the Senna S (Turn Two). He also ran out of time for another attempt, the short lap and Interlagos often allows for multiple attempts on a set of tyres.

Hamilton split the two Haas’s after he was knocked out, the seven-time champion going two hundredths faster than Nico Hulkenberg. Another difficult qualifying saw Sergio Perez knocked out in thirteenth as pressure continues to grow over his future, just over six tenths behind Verstappen in the middle part of sprint qualifying.

Hamilton, has already been beaten in the GP qualifying head-to-head against Russell this year, says he is “not massively bothered” about the result.

Perez failed to start his final attempt in SQ2 before the chequered flag that put him six hundredths behind Hulkenberg and ahead of Franco Colapinto by a quarter of a tenth. in the Argentine’s defacto home race at the end of SQ1 his final lap, having his first deleted for track limits, knocked out Fernando Alonso. Valtteri Bottas was slowest in SQ2 three tenths behind Colapinto.

Alonso’s final attempt only saw him go fifteenth before others improved, he was nearly eight hundredths faster than Esteban Ocon with Yuki Tsunoda eighteenth. The second Aston Martin of Lance Stroll was nineteenth a tenth and a half behind Tsunoda, while he was nearly seven-tenths faster than Guanyu Zhou.

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