Norris on pole for São Paulo sprint after Ocon/Alonso crash

Lando Norris will start from pole after a sprint shootout that saw Esteban Ocon and Fernando crash. Image: Russell Batchelor/XPB

Lando Norris will start from pole position for the São Paulo sprint after pipping Red Bull duo Max Verstappen and Sergio Perez in the shootout around Interlagos.

McLaren driver Norris finished with a lap of one minute 10.622secs, just 0.061s ahead of Verstappen, with both drivers having the advantage of being new soft tyres compared to a number of their rivals around them.

Norris now has a statistic to live up to as the last four sprints have been won from pole, although is under investigation by the stewards for ‘exceeding the time limit between the safety car lines during qualifying’.

On used softs, and despite setting the quickest time in the first sector, Perez had to settle for third, 0.073s behind Verstappen.

In contrast to his team-mate, and like Perez on used softs, Oscar Piastri, who had failed to set a time in Q3 for the grand prix as the weather rolled in and he was caught by an about-turn strong gust of wind, starts 10th following an SQ3 that became a one-lap shootout.

Despite Norris and Verstappen having two sets of soft tyres available, and Daniel Ricciardo and Yuki Tsunoda four, it was not until with three and a half minutes remaining that the drivers emerged from their garages.

The decision from AlphaTauri was a baffling one as they could easily have set the benchmark times, whilst McLaren and Red Bull opted to preserve one set of new softs for the race.

Around the fourth shortest track on the calendar, but the second shortest in terms of lap time, only beaten by Austria’s Red Bull Ring, Ricciardo will start eighth in his AlphaTauri, making amends for his “bad lap” qualifying for the grand prix on Friday evening.

Ricciardo was pipped by team-mate Tsunoda by a tenth of a second, but still offering AlphaTauri its best chance of securing a sprint point for the first time as the team is the only one not to do so.

Behind Perez, in fourth and fifth, will be Mercedes duo George Russell and Lewis Hamilton, split by 0.083s, followed by Tsunoda.

For Ferrari, the session was not their best, with Charles Leclerc and Carlos Sainz either side of Ricciardo in seventh and ninth.

The shootout was overshadowed by an incident involving Alpine’s Esteban Ocon and two-time F1 champion Fernando Alonso in his Aston Martin in SQ1.

It meant the opening 12-minute run was cut short by 33 seconds after Ocon ploughed into a barrier coming out of the Senna S after being involved in a collision with Alonso, locking in the bottom five at that stage.

On a quick lap, Ocon was out of shape after coming off a kerb out of the S at a time when Alonso was to the one side of the circuit on a slow-down lap, albeit with onboard cameras showing him steering to his left as he approached Turn 3.

It can be argued Alonso could have given Ocon a degree more room, but the fact the Frenchman was slightly out of shape as he came up to Alonso resulted in the duo colliding, right-rear on the Alpine, with front-left on the Aston Martin.

The end result was Ocon spinning backward and hitting a barrier at high speed, causing severe damage to his car, whilst the AMR23 sustained front wing damage and a puncture.

Understandably, Ocon blamed Alonso and vice-versa, with the incident to be investigated by the stewards.

It means Ocon will start the sprint 16th ahead of Aston Martin’s Lance Stroll, who was denied another opportunity to elevate himself out of the bottom five, less than 24 hours after qualifying third for the grand prix.

The Canadian revealed he was hampered by “a lot of traffic” on his push lap, leaving him ahead of Alfa Romeo’s Zhou Guanyu, who will line up 18th ahead of an all-Williams back-row led by Alex Albon, with Logan Sargeant again 20th.

With all drivers running on the medium-compound tyres as required by the regulations, Sainz finished quickest with a time of 1:11.796s, ahead of Norris, Hamilton and Verstappen.

The barriers took a considerable period of time to repair, with the start of SQ2 delayed by 25 minutes, but one in which Alonso did not take part due to the damage sustained, leaving him to line up 15th.

Ahead of the Spanish driver, following their exits from SQ2, will be Haas duo Kevin Magnussen and Nico Hulkenberg in 11th and 12th, followed by the second Alpine of Pierre Gasly, and Valtteri Bottas in his Alfa Romeo.

With just five minutes remaining in the session, five drivers had not set a time – Alonso obviously – but he was joined by the two AlphaTauris of Daniel Ricciardo and Yuki Tsunoda, along with Gasly and Bottas.

On a fresh set of medium tyres, as they had been saved by the team but putting their drivers under pressure to execute a lap, Ricciardo and Tsunoda finished fourth and 10th quickest, with the Japanese driver scraping through by 0.051s ahead of Magnussen.

Norris, who was sitting at the bottom of the timesheet as the time expired, rocketed to the top as the last to cross the line, setting a 1:11.221s, finishing ahead of Perez, Verstappen, and then Ricciardo.

And the Briton continued that form in SQ3 to take top spot on the grid.