Norris on pole ahead of Russell and Tsunoda in dramatic qualifying

McLaren's Lando Norris prevailed in qualifying at Formula One's Brazilian Grand Prix, while Red Bull driver Max Verstappen controversially retired after being conflicted over the wet session's many red flags.

George Russell will start second for Mercedes this afternoon's rescheduled race, while Yuki Tsunoda will be third for RB as Verstappen's penalty for an engine change means he will start 17th – behind Lewis Hamilton, who retired in Q1.

In the third quarter, Norris led after the first runs on the intermediate tires with a time of 1:25.631 minutes. The cars were fueled up for a long drive as the teams expected the intermittent rain to become heavier again.

He improved his time to 1:24.158 minutes, putting him ahead of Alex Albon and Oscar Piastri in the other McLaren, before Fernando Alonso became the second Aston Martin driver of the session to retire – the Spaniard lost his car in the steep turn 11 on the left at the end of the middle sector.

With seven minutes to go the drivers lined up to try again and their first attempts on track brought no improvement as they raised the tire temperatures – Russell, Piastri and Tsunoda all had moments, with the latter two spinning out.

But before any purple sectors could be registered, Albon crashed heavily at Turn 1 – appearing to brake on the wet white line while simultaneously wondering if he had a braking problem after spinning backwards, destroying the rear of his Williams and a fifth red flag caused.

The teams then pursued two different approaches: The McLarens drove two laps with full energy, Norris improved the pole time with both – first to 1:24.092 minutes and finally to 1:23.405 minutes.

Piastri failed to improve on his first attempt, then stalled in Turn 1 and went off track on his final lap, meaning the drivers who remained in the pits with their spares in the tire covers for an extra time and only We were able to gain time for a run.

First, Liam Lawson came into second before being pushed back by Tsunoda and Norris, while Esteban Ocon – a two-lap runner for the final attempts – moved into fourth for Alpine.

Charles Leclerc ended up sixth as the Ferrari leader after arriving at Turn 1 with a yellow flag for Piastri on his final lap, while Albon moved up to seventh but was still ahead of Piastri.

The crashed Astons of Alonso and Lance Stroll finished ninth and tenth – the latter did not take part in Q3 due to his early incident in the second quarter.

This was a significant mini-session for the title contenders as Norris was in 11th place and was on the verge of a surprise exit when Carlos Sainz crashed at Turn 1, jeopardizing his progress – Norris also struggled with the full wet tires in Q1 , before Piastri led the race Switch to Inters in the middle segment.

But Norris was able to catch up on his first lap out of the pits on the breaks as Q2 resumed and then went even faster while Verstappen failed to improve and was pushed into the drop zone along with teammate Sergio Perez.

Both Red Bull drivers then ended up on the wrong side of the second red flag less than a minute before the end – caused by Stroll's accident in Turn 3.

During one of the many delays that followed, Verstappen fretted to reporters about the timing of the Stroll interruption, but even if a red flag had sounded within five seconds of the incident, he would still have finished in 11th thanks to a second's improvement from Leclerc after the accident and due to Red Bull's pit position at the beginning of the pit lane, not enough time to complete a final lap.

Stroll's red flag also eliminated Valtteri Bottas in 11th place – the Finn's best qualifying result since his 10th place in China – as well as the already eliminated Sainz and Alpine's Pierre Gasly.

This also eliminated Valtteri Bottas in 11th place – the Finn's best qualifying result since his 10th place in China – as well as the already eliminated Sainz and Pierre Gasly from Alpine.

Verstappen led the first qualifying session where Franco Colapinto crashed midway through the race, which meant a difficult end to the session for the rest as the rain became heavier and times only really started to improve towards the end.

Norris made it to 15th, while Lawson's late improvement eliminated Hamilton, who was furious at “that damn car”.

Oliver Bearman and Nico Hülkenberg also failed to progress in a session when Bottas unsuccessfully switched to Inters before the red flag, while his teammate Zhou Guanyu had the chance to eliminate Norris, but the Sauber driver's final lap was only good enough to Ending.

Brazilian Grand Prix – starting grid