Formula 1 championship leader Lando Norris secured a commanding pole position for the 2025 Brazilian Grand Prix, as title rival Oscar Piastri could only qualify fourth and Max Verstappen was eliminated in Q1.
Norris messed up his first Q3 run with a lock-up at Turn 1, languishing in 10th place while Piastri put his own McLaren on provisional pole.
But Norris nailed his final flying lap to take pole by 0.174 seconds from the Mercedes of Kimi Antonelli, who again put in a star turn to bag a front row grid spot.
Piastri’s second lap was poor and he slumped to fourth in the final standings, behind Charles Leclerc’s Ferrari.
Isack Hadjar was fifth for Racing Bulls, ahead of the Mercedes of George Russell, who complained throughout qualifying of a lack of grip. He tried running medium Pirellis for his final run but it didn’t work.
Liam Lawson was seventh in the second Racing Bulls ahead of Ollie Bearman, who starred in Q1 and Q2 and was fast again on his first Q3 run but slipped back as others produced tidier laps when it counted at the end of Q3.
Pierre Gasly and Nico Hulkenberg rounded out a top 10 that featured neither Lewis Hamilton’s Ferrari nor Red Bull.
Verstappen has been unhappy all weekend with the ride quality and lack of grip produced by his car. Red Bull admitted trying a set-up experiment for qualifying that backfired spectacularly as Verstappen was eliminated in Q1 for the first time since the 2021 Russian GP, and for the first time in his F1 career on pure pace.
After finishing his final Q1 lap only 16th quickest, complaining of “zero grip”, Verstappen said: “It was just bad. Couldn’t push at all. The car was all over the place. Sliding around a lot. Had to underdrive it a lot, just to not have a moment.
“That of course doesn’t work for qualifying. We first have to analyse what is going on and understand how it can be this bad.”
Both Aston Martins and the two Williams joined Hamilton in being eliminated in Q2. Fernando Alonso was 11th, just 0.016s from making it through to Q3.
Esteban Ocon, Franco Colapinto, Yuki Tsunoda and Gabriel Bortoleto joined Verstappen in being eliminated in Q1.
Tsunoda called it a “disaster weekend” for his side of the Red Bull garage, while Bortoleto failed to turn a lap in front of his home crowd as Sauber was unable to complete repairs in time following Bortoleto’s monster crash in the sprint race.
Result
1 Lando Norris (McLaren) 1m09.511s
2 Kimi Antonelli (Mercedes) 1m09.685s
3 Charles Leclerc (Ferrari) 1m09.805s
4 Oscar Piastri (McLaren) 1m09.886s
5 Isack Hadjar (Racing Bulls) 1m09.931s
6 George Russell (Mercedes) 1m09.942s
7 Liam Lawson (Racing Bulls) 1m09.962s
8 Ollie Bearman (Haas) 1m09.977s
9 Pierre Gasly (Alpine) 1m10.002s
10 Nico Hulkenberg (Sauber) 1m10.039s
11 Fernando Alonso (Aston Martin) 1m10.001s
12 Alex Albon (Williams) 1m10.053s
13 Lewis Hamilton (Ferrari) 1m10.100s
14 Lance Stroll (Aston Martin) 1m10.161s
15 Carlos Sainz (Williams) 1m10.472s
16 Max Verstappen (Red Bull) 1m10.403s
17 Esteban Ocon (Haas) 1m10.438s
18 Franco Colapinto (Alpine) 1m10.632s
19 Yuki Tsunoda (Red Bull) 1m10.711s
No time: Gabriel Bortoleto (Sauber)
