Piastri leads McLaren front-row lock-out for Brazil GP Sprint

Piastri leads McLaren front-row lock-out for Brazil GP Sprint

1st November 2024 0 By Kamron Kent

McLaren’s Oscar Piastri led a McLaren front-row lock-out for the Sprint race after pipping teammate Lando Norris to pole position.

Feature image credit: Red Bull Content Pool

It was a dry start for sprint qualifying in Brazil but the clouds were threatening above the circuit with a risk of rain keeping the teams up and down the pit wall on edge. 

Across the qualifying session, combined with the shorter run times, the drivers were eager to get out on track at the earliest opportunity to avoid any chance of rain. 

After being one of the first drivers out on track in SQ3, alongside Williams’ Alexander Albon, the two McLarens locked out the front row for the Sprint as Piastri put in a storming 1m 8.899s lap. Norris completed the McLaren front row in second. 

Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc completed the top three, in third, two-tenths off the pace of Piastri. Red Bull’s Max Verstappen was not able to topple the McLarens and will start fourth, leaving Ferrari’s Carlos Sainz to round out the top five. 

Mercedes’ sole SQ3 driver, George Russell, led the bottom five of those inside the top 10 with the sixth-fastest lap time on the board ahead of Alpine’s Pierre Gasly and Visa Cash App RB’s Liam Lawson who occupied seventh and eighth respectively. 

Albon completed sprint qualifying ahead of Haas’ super-sub Oliver Bearman, who is standing in for an unwell Kevin Magnussen, in 10th. The British Haas driver failed to set a lap time in SQ3 after he had his only lap time deleted. 

Mercedes’ Lewis Hamilton was one of two big names to be knocked out of Sprint Qualifying, in SQ2, as he finished the session in 11th, 0.097s away from next car. Red Bull’s Sergio Perez failed to make it to the line in time to put in a lapped time, occupying 13th for the Sprint grid. 

Haas’ Nico Hulkenberg squeezed in between the Mercedes and Red Bull, of Hamilton and Perez, and completed SQ2 12th. Williams’ Franco Colapinto, who had knocked out Aston Martin’s Fernando Alonso for a place in SQ2, would go no further and finished 14th ahead of Kick Sauber’s Valtteri Bottas. 

After the first 12 minutes of sprint qualifying, Alonso missed out on a Q2 appearance by 0.117s, finishing 16th. The Spaniard’s teammate Lance Stroll completed a double knock-out for Aston Martin in 19th. This left Alpine’s Esteban Ocon and RB’s Yuki Tsunoda to complete the Aston Martin sandwich in 17th and 18th, respectively. Kick Sauber’s Zhou Guanyu completed the 20-car field as the slowest driver in 20th.

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Hi, I'm Kamron. I created ApexMotorsports.co.uk in the dying embers of the 2021 Formula 1 world championship. It allowed me freedom to write whatever I wanted to write about which was all things motorsports, my passion. I have put a lot of effort in over the years to keep this website in its best shape and I've loved seeing the brand grow consistently, month-on-month, year-on-year. My ambition is to keep watching this brand grow into a primary outlet of news for all things motorsports whilst fueling my desire to pursue a career in sports journalism, specialising in motorsports.

CategoryFormula 1 Formula Series News

About the author

Hi, I'm Kamron. I created ApexMotorsports.co.uk in the dying embers of the 2021 Formula 1 world championship. It allowed me freedom to write whatever I wanted to write about which was all things motorsports, my passion. I have put a lot of effort in over the years to keep this website in its best shape and I've loved seeing the brand grow consistently, month-on-month, year-on-year. My ambition is to keep watching this brand grow into a primary outlet of news for all things motorsports whilst fueling my desire to pursue a career in sports journalism, specialising in motorsports.

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