Autobayng News Team
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The stewards will not investigate the Stroll/Leclerc incident. Here’s our report on the sprint race qualifying session.
Stroll has been noted for potentially impeding Leclerc.
Norris takes pole position for the sprint race. Here’s the grid.
Antonelli stays second.
Verstappen can only manage sixth after going fastest of anyone in the first sector.
Piastri goes up to third behind Antonelli. Norris shaves two hundredths of a second off his time.
Verstappen is fast though, immediately beating Norris’s time in the first sector with his slightly fresher tyres.
Piastri and Norris begin their second flying laps before Verstappen starts his first.
Norris is substantially quicker than Piastri, a 1’09.271 puts him on top.
Russell is slower with his first lap on softs than he was on mediums. Antonelli beats him to go fastest, 1’09.340. Piastri goes third behind the Mercedes.
SQ2 is over and the following drivers are eliminated: Lewis Hamilton, Alexander Albon, Pierre Gasly, Gabriel Bortoleto and Oliver Bearman.
Hamilton drops out in SQ2. He appears to have been affected by the yellow flags caused by his team mate, as was Gasly who is also out.
Leclerc spins. He gets going again but that might have protected Verstappen from drivers who could have beaten him.
Verstappen does a lap and stays eighth. His run into Mergulho was slightly compromised by traffic. Red Bull tell him to pit. He calls his car “un-driveable.”
Ferrari have been into the pits to cool their tyres. McLaren and Verstappen staying out – they can’t afford failing to get out in time to start their final laps.
Currently in the drop zone: Lewis Hamilton, Alexander Albon, Pierre Gasly, Oliver Bearman and Gabriel Bortoleto.
The Mercedes drivers take up fourth and fifth, Andrea Kimi Antonelli ahead, which leaves Verstappen only eighth.
Norris is not super-strong in the first sector, he’s quickest at the end of the lap but it only puts him second behind Alonso. Piastri takes up third place.
The Aston Martin go quickest and Leclerc slots in behind them. Isack Hadjar takes second and Verstappen, surprisingly, only manages fourth.
Bortoleto gets a chance to head the times at home as he sets the first time in SQ2. However his time is immediately beaten by Oliver Bearman in the sole remaining Haas.
SQ1 is over and the following drivers are eliminated: Franco Colapinto, Liam Lawson, Yuki Tsunoda, Esteban Ocon and Carlos Sainz Jnr.
Norris finds even more time and extends his lead with a 1’09.627. Alonso grabs third.
Verstappen improves to split the McLaren drivers.
Nico Hulkenberg goes eighth and Tsunoda is eliminated.
Albon gets a great to to go sixth, Tsunoda is down to 15th.
Tsunoda gets up to 13th then immediately drops one place, he looks vulnerable here.
Leclerc improves but still can get no higher than seventh. Hamilton is slower in the first sector of his lap but a good end to the lap puts him sixth.
Currently in the drop zone: Alexander Albon, Esteban Ocon, Franco Colapinto, Carlos Sainz Jnr and Yuki Tsunoda.
Piastri re-establishes McLaren’s one-two but he’s almost three tenths of a second off his team mate.
George Russell goes quickest in the middle sector and takes over at the top of the times with a 1’10.048. However Norris finds over three tenths of a second to take that off him. Pierre Gasly is now a strong fourth behind Verstappen.
Max Verstappen is also on mediums for the first time but he’s immediately fastest in the first sector. He goes quickest by almost two-tenths of a second.
Ferrari didn’t run the mediums in practice. Charles Leclerc completes his first lap on them and is only seventh fastest. Lewis Hamilton takes a few hundredths off that and replaces his team mate in seventh.
Isack Hadjar splits the Aston Martins, one-thousandth of a second off Alonso.
There’s a similar gap between the Aston Martin drivers now in third and fourth, Alonso ahead and a tenth of a second off the McLaren drivers. This is going to be an extremely close session even by 2025 standards.
Lando Norris has to pick his way past Esteban Ocon on his first lap. He sets a 1’10.311 which is instantly over a second faster than Tsunoda managed. Oscar Piastri beats that, however, by two hundredths of a second.
Liam Lawson reports debris in the pit lane as he heads out.
Yuki Tsunoda heads out first, followed by the McLaren drivers.
Getting in and out of the pits can take a considerable amount of time due to the length of the pit lane exit in Brazil. Sauber are closest to the pit exit while the top teams are at the back – McLaren furthest away from the pit exit, followed by Ferrari, Red Bull and Mercedes.
As usual sprint race qualifying is run to tighter timings than regular qualifying sessions and drivers must use the medium compound in the first two stages and the softs in stage three.
Sprint race qualifying at the 2025 Brazilian Grand Prix is coming up next.
2025 Brazilian Grand Prix
- Verstappen’s car felt like a “pogo stick” as he qualified sixth for sprint race
- Tsunoda denies crash in practice contributed to first-round qualifying exit
- Hamilton faces investigation for “failing to slow under double waved yellow flags” again
- Norris on pole ahead of Antonelli for sprint race, Verstappen sixth
- 2025 Brazilian Grand Prix sprint race grid
