Lando Norris in action at the Brazilian GP.©AFP
Lando Norris will start from pole position for the Brazilian Grand Prix on Sunday after a truncated qualifying session in wet conditions that saw five red flags. Championship leader Max Verstappen, who is 44 points ahead of Norris at the top of the standings, was 12th when the second qualifying session was red flagged. This means that with a five-place penalty for installing a sixth engine, the Dutchman will start 17th in the Grand Prix later on Sunday.
Verstappen was furious after the red flag was shown around 40 seconds after Lance Stroll hit the wall, ruling out chances of a restart.
“It’s just the car hits the wall, it must be straight red,” he told Sky.
“I don’t understand why it takes 30 to 40 seconds for the red flag to sound.
“I don’t know, honestly? It’s so stupid to talk about it. It’s ridiculous. Now we’re focusing on the race, what happened.”
Norris was in danger of being eliminated from the first qualifying session which was postponed from Saturday due to weather, but kept his cool in his McLaren and dominated the next two sessions with an intermediate tire change.
“A lot happened today but I’m super, super happy because I was struggling at the start of qualifying,” Norris said.
He will start alongside the Mercedes of George Russell with Red Bull driver Yuki Tsunoda and Alpine’s Esteban Ocon on the second row of the grid.
Seven-time world champion Lewis Hamilton struggled with his Mercedes and was unable to take part in the second session and will start from 15th place.
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)
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