Lando Norris took two points out of Max Verstappen’s championship lead with victory in the sprint race at the Sao Paulo Grand Prix.
Norris was allowed through by team-mate Oscar Piastri two laps before the end of the race on team orders, after a tense four-way fight for the lead from the start.
But McLaren made the swap a lot more tense than it needed to be, by delaying it until Verstappen’s Red Bull had passed the Ferrari of Charles Leclerc with six laps to go.
The result cuts Verstappen’s lead to 45 points, with the grand prix still to come on Sunday. Qualifying for that is at 18:00 UK time on Saturday.
The top four ran nose to tail for the first 18 laps of the race, with Piastri leading Norris, from Leclerc and Verstappen.
McLaren had gone into the race planning to allow Norris to lead in order to maximise his points gain over Verstappen.
They had an apparent opportunity to swap the drivers on lap three, by which time Norris was 1.6 seconds ahead of Leclerc.
But they did not take it, and soon Leclerc got back within a second of Norris, giving him the use of the DRS overtaking aid to allow him to stay close and threatening.
The obvious choice seemed to have been to allow Norris through on Piastri early on, and then have Piastri give Leclerc the DRS to allow him to defend from Verstappen.
Instead, they kept Norris in second and Leclerc began to slip back until by lap 17 Verstappen was right on his gearbox, and he moved past using the DRS into Turn Four on lap 18.
Initially, McLaren seemed to have the pace to keep more than a second clear of Verstappen.
But there was extra jeopardy when Nico Hulkenberg’s Haas pulled off on lap 21, with three laps to go.
It was obvious that a virtual or real safety car would be deployed, and if it had been before McLaren had swapped places, then Piastri might have won the race.
In the end, they got the swap done just before the VSC was deployed, and the race resumed for a final half lap.
Norris said: “Not proud about it, but we worked well as a team together. I thank Oscar. Today was the result we wanted, Oscar deserved it but I thank him and the team.
“It was yo-yoing a little bit. The dirty air costs you a lot of lap time. I felt a bit quicker but I couldn’t get close enough to pass. I felt we were quicker than the guys behind but it’s difficult in the sprint to know how much to manage (the tyres).
Verstappen has been cited for a potential infringement of the VSC rules, which could lead to a penalty, apparently for when he tried to challenge Piastri on the restart on the final lap.
Verstappen, who has a five-place grid penalty for the grand prix, said: “It was quite a tricky race but the pace was always good. It took a bit too long with Charles because when everyone is in the DRS train it is very hard to attack. But then he started to make some mistakes and I could use that to attack.
Leclerc took fourth, ahead of team-mate Carlos Sainz, who was off the pace of the leaders.
Mercedes driver George Russell, Alpine’s Pierre Gasly, and Red Bull’s Sergio Perez – from 13th on the grid – completed the top eight points positions.
