McLaren’s Lando Norris took pole position for the Sao Paulo Grand Prix in a chaotic, crash-strewn qualifying session in which Max Verstappen was 12th.
The Red Bull driver has a five-place grid penalty for the grand prix later on Sunday so will start 17th, although he may vault up if some of the damaged cars cannot start the race.
Mercedes driver George Russell snatched second place alongside Norris, with the RB of Yuki Tsunoda third, ahead of Alpine’s Esteban Ocon and RB’s Liam Lawson.
The session was punctuated by five red flags for heavy crashes involving, in order, Williams’ Franco Colapinto, Ferrari’s Carlos Sainz, both Aston Martin drivers Lance Stroll and Fernando Alonso, and Williams’ Alex Albon.
Verstappen was left fuming about the delay in throwing the red flag for Stroll’s crash in the second session, which he believed had allowed other drivers to knock him out of the top 10 because the session was not resumed.
And Norris himself came close to being knocked out in the first session – he was in the drop zone before jumping up to 15th, the final car to progress, with his final lap.
That time, though, knocked out Mercedes driver Lewis Hamilton, who qualified 16th.
Norris said: “There was a lot going on. I was struggling a lot at the start of the session, I worked on it a lot in the session. A little surprised to be on pole but a good result for us.”
Verstappen complained that the delay had allowed other drivers to demote him out of the top 10.
“I find it unbelievable,” Verstappen said. “The car goes into the wall, broken. It’s clearly destroyed, but they wait 30-40 seconds and the others can complete their lap times and of course the ones behind cannot.
“The car hits the wall, it needs to be a straight red, I don’t understand why it needs to take 30, 40 seconds for the red flag to come out. It’s so stupid to talk about. It’s ridiculous.”
In fact, a review of the session suggests it did not make a difference to Verstappen.
He was lying 10th when Stroll crashed, after a poor single lap following a restart after the red-flag period for Sainz’s accident earlier in the session.
Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc crossed the line to bump Verstappen down to 11th just two seconds later – well within the normal margin for a yellow flag to become a red after a heavy crash.
Leclerc ended up qualifying sixth, with Albon – who had been second before his crash – dropping down to seventh, ahead of McLaren’s Oscar Piastri, Alonso and Stroll.
Williams ran out of time to repair Albon’s car and withdrew him from the grand prix but Colapinto will make the race, while Sainz will start from the pit lane after Ferrari changed his engine and gearbox.
Verstappen starts the race 44 points ahead of Norris in the championship with four races to go.
The race will start as scheduled at 15:30 UK time (12:30 local), despite the delays to qualifying, following an agreement between the teams and the FIA on Saturday night to ensure it can be run before expected worse weather arrives later in the afternoon.
