Brazilian GP 2024: Oscar Piastri on sprint pole ahead of Lando Norris

Oscar Piastri led Lando Norris to a McLaren one-two in sprint qualifying at the Sao Paulo Grand Prix.

Norris’ title rival Max Verstappen could manage only fourth place in his Red Bull, behind Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc.

Verstappen, who has a five-place grid penalty for the main grand prix on Sunday, starts the weekend 47 points ahead of Norris in the championship.

The result of sprint qualifying gives Norris an opportunity to claw back a small amount of points on Verstappen in Saturday’s sprint event, in which there are eight points for a win, seven for second and so on down to eighth.

But Norris said he was not thinking about the championship.

“I hate this question so much,” he said. “I’m just going to race. I don’t care about where he qualified.

“For me it’s just focus on my own job. It’s the same question every time. It doesn’t matter. If he’s first or last, I will do the best I can.”

Norris set the pace on the first runs in the final shootout, with a lap of one minute 8.928 seconds – Piastri just under 0.3secs slower.

But Norris failed to improve on his second lap and Piastri edged him out by just 0.029secs.

“A big improvement compared to early today,” Norris said. “We were struggling a lot (in practice). A little bit surprised we were so quick today, but a pleasant one. A good lap. I made too many mistakes on my final lap and just pitted.”

Verstappen was 0.320secs adrift in fourth place, and just 0.056secs slower than Leclerc.

Verstappen said that bumps on the freshly resurfaced track had exposed one of the Red Bull’s key flaws.

“As soon as we went into qualifying, it looked like we were definitely off,” he said.

“A bit difficult on the bumps. They did the resurfacing but I think they made it worse to drive. It is extremely bumpy everywhere and that is not good for our car.

“On all the bumpy areas the car is jumping around a lot and it is costing me quite a bit of lap time.

“For tomorrow, when you are already quite a bit off over one lap, we are not particularly the strongest in the race. There is some weather around that can come but not for the sprint maybe.”