Lando Norris has taken pole position during a hugely eventful qualifying session ahead of the Sao Paulo Grand Prix, which featured five red flags, several shock eliminations – including Max Verstappen exiting in Q2 – and changing weather conditions.
Following the postponement of the session from Saturday, there were numerous dramas during Sunday morning’s qualifying right until the final Q3 segment, in which two heavy crashes for Fernando Alonso and Alex Albon disrupted running. This left just over three minutes on the clock – and seven cars in the running – for the final top 10 shootout.
Despite continued tricky conditions, Norris surged through to claim pole position with a lap of 1m 23.405s, putting him 0.173s clear of Mercedes’ George Russell in second. Yuki Tsunoda, meanwhile, enjoyed his best-ever qualifying to take third for RB, the Japanese driver set to line up alongside Alpine’s Esteban Ocon in fourth.
RB’s day was made even better by Liam Lawson slotting into P5, ahead of Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc in P6. Albon held onto P7 despite his earlier crash, while Oscar Piastri had to settle for P8 after having a moment in the McLaren.
Alonso and Aston Martin team mate Lance Stroll rounded out the top 10, with Alonso having been unable to continue following his incident while Stroll did not participate in Q3 after suffering a crash of his own at the end of Q2.
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