Max Verstappen starts the sprint race in Brazil second, Lando Norris narrowly wins: ‘Wasn’t on top’ | formula 1

After qualifying for the Brazilian Grand Prix, Verstappen indicated that he was curious about the real relationships between the drivers. The extreme weather conditions on Friday afternoon had given a distorted picture, although with the world champion as the winner. But under better conditions, more would become clear, according to the Dutchman. He was not so sure in advance that he would also have the Sprint Shootout was going to win. “The differences are very small,” he said.

And so it turned out, in a shoot-out that started chaotically. A major crash by Esteban Ocon prematurely ended the first session in São Paulo. The Frenchman from Alpine was on a fast lap when he had to overtake the slow-moving Fernando Alonso. At that moment he lost control of his car and landed hard into the wall.

Watch the collision between Ocon and Alonso:

It made no difference that the Spaniard from Aston Martin was involved in Ocon’s crash. The images of the braking action with which Alonso tried to prevent this were telling. The rubber on his tires was eaten by the asphalt. In any case, the situation meant that he did not come out in the second session, meaning he had to start the sprint race in fifteenth place. In addition to Ocon and Alonso, the premature end of the first session also resulted in Lance Stroll as a victim. The Canadian will start tomorrow in the main race from third place, but will have to make do with starting position seventeen in the sprint race.

In the meantime, AlphaTauri driver Daniel Ricciardo performed well again. He drove a very strong qualifying and a good race in Mexico last week, but was unable to repeat that on the first day of the race weekend in Brazil. But in the Sprint Shootout he showed that his performance in Mexico was not a one-off. Ricciardo qualified fourth at the Autódromo José Carlos Pace for the decisive session, although he ultimately finished eighth, two places behind his teammate Yuki Tsunoda.

Watch the denouement of the sprint qualification:

The Japanese starts behind two Red Bulls and two Mercedes, but both top teams did not take victory. That went to McLaren driver Norris. The Briton was 0.061 seconds faster than Verstappen, who was ahead of his teammate Sergio Pérez, George Russell and Lewis Hamilton. The world champion is indeed not just faster than the rest in every session and the differences between the teams actually seem to be smaller in Brazil than elsewhere. But given that he also starts the sprint race (7:30 PM Dutch time) from the front row, albeit not from (the unofficial) pole position, it is still a very good sign for Verstappen and Red Bull.

“It was close during the entire qualifying session,” Verstappen looked back afterwards. He did not look back on his last lap with satisfaction. “In the first sector and the beginning of the second, I was just not on top of it. It’s always difficult when you only have one set of tires. If you take big risks, you might be rewarded, but today I fell just short of that.”