Brazilian Grand Prix 2024: Norris wins sprint from Piastri

Lando Norris took two points off Max Verstappen’s championship lead with victory in the sprint race at the Sao Paulo Grand Prix.

Teammate Oscar Piastri passed Norris with two laps remaining in the race on team orders after a tense four-way battle for the lead from the start.

But McLaren made the exchange far more tense than it needed to be, delaying it until Verstappen’s Red Bull overtook Charles Leclerc’s Ferrari with six laps to go.

The result cuts Verstappen’s lead to 45 points, with the Grand Prix still to come on Sunday. Qualifying for this will take place at 6pm UK time on Saturday.

For the first 18 laps of the race, the top four ran nose to tail, with Piastri leading Norris from Leclerc and Verstappen.

McLaren planned the race to allow Norris to lead and maximize their points advantage over Verstappen.

They had a clear opportunity to switch drivers on lap three, with Norris leading Leclerc by 1.6 seconds.

But they didn’t take advantage of this and Leclerc was soon behind Norris by a second, giving him the opportunity to use the DRS overtaking assist to allow him to stay close and threaten.

The obvious choice seemed to be to pass Norris to Piastri early on and then have Piastri give Leclerc DRS to allow him to defend against Verstappen.

Instead, they kept Norris in second and Leclerc began to fall back until by lap 17 Verstappen was right on his gearbox and he went wide using DRS into turn four on lap 18.

At first it looked like McLaren had enough pace to gain more than a second’s lead over Verstappen.

But further danger arose when Nico Hulkenberg’s Haas spun off on lap 21 with three laps to go.

It was obvious that a virtual or real safety car would be deployed, and if it had been before the McLarens swapped positions, Piastri could have won the race.

They eventually made a change just before the VSC was deployed and the race restarted for the final half lap.

Norris said: “I’m not proud of it, but we worked well as a team. I thank Oscar. Today was the result we wanted, Oscar deserved it, but I am grateful to him and the team.

“It was a bit of a yo-yo. Dirty air costs you a lot of lap time. I felt a little faster, but couldn’t get close enough to pass. I felt like we were faster than the guys behind us, but in a sprint it’s hard to know how much you need to manage (the tires).

Verstappen was charged with a potential violation of VSC rules, which could have resulted in a penalty, apparently for attempting to challenge Piastri at the restart on the final lap.

Verstappen, who missed the starting grid by five places in the Grand Prix, said: “It was quite a difficult race, but the pace was always good. With Charles it took too long because when everyone is on the DRS train it is very difficult to attack. But then he started making mistakes and I could use that to attack.

Leclerc finished fourth ahead of teammate Carlos Sainz, who was lagging behind the leaders.

Mercedes driver George Russell, Alpine’s Pierre Gasly and Red Bull’s Sergio Perez, 13th in the standings, filled the top eight points positions.