Piastri hands Norris the sprint victory, Verstappen third

Lando Norris was waved through by teammate Oscar Piastri to victory in the 2024 Formula 1 sprint race in Brazil, with the second McLaren saved from an attack by Max Verstappen by a late virtual safety car.

However, the Red Bull driver will be investigated for his behavior after the race as the VSC ended on the final lap.

At the start, polesitter Piastri moved to the side to cut Norris to the inside at Turn 1, where the McLarens held their positions and Verstappen unsuccessfully attacked Charles Leclerc's third place.

The McLaren pair had a slight lead in the opening laps before Leclerc – who was unfazed by an early look from Verstappen in Turn 4 at the end of the track's second straight – and the world champion closed the gap again.

Norris indicated that he felt Piastri should have let him past in the first quarter of the 24-lap contest, but the only order in the first half was for the leader to give DRS to his teammate after the second McLaren fell slightly behind The first 10 laps were over.

Leclerc watched the McLarens closely in the next phase before a moment on the Senna S on lap 13 meant he had to defend against Verstappen until Turn 4 and the McLarens eventually fended off the DRS threat from behind.

But just as McLaren told Norris that he expected to swap positions towards the end of the race, Leclerc's slowing pace meant that Verstappen was finally able to get past the outside line at Turn 4 with DRS on lap 18.

Verstappen quickly chipped away at some of Norris' lead as he continued to regularly drive within a second of his teammate.

The McLaren duo opened up a two-second lead over Verstappen at the start of lap 20 before the Red Bull caught up by a few tenths.

When Nico Hülkenberg drove off in his Haas in turn 8, McLaren suddenly had to urgently swap the lead for fear of the VSC that would eventually set in.

On lap 22, Piastri obeyed instructions to let Norris pass when Verstappen suddenly overran the now second McLaren and threatened massively in third place.

But shortly before the start of the penultimate lap, the VSC was activated and the race was neutralized.

There was to be one final moment of action as the VSC ended as Norris reached Turn 4 on the final lap and Verstappen moved out from behind Piastri's slipstream as if to attack, although the neutralization was still active.

When the light turned green, Norris easily prevailed and won by 0.5 seconds, while Verstappen did not get a chance as he and Piastri reached Turn 4 at that point.

Shortly after the end of the race, it was announced that Verstappen's actions would be investigated for a possible violation.

“Yeah, I’m not proud of it,” Norris said after the team’s instruction. “But we work well together as a team. I thank Oscar, but we did a great job as a team.

“Today was the result we wanted. Oscar deserves it, but we do what we have to do, so I thank him and the team.

“We had great pace. I'm looking forward to qualifying [later on Saturday] and the race tomorrow.”

Ferrari's expected lead in race speed never materialized as Leclerc ended up falling behind teammate Carlos Sainz – the Spaniard had been quickly dropped back in the early laps.

George Russell was the leading Mercedes in sixth place, Pierre Gasly took an impressive seventh place for Alpine, while Sergio Perez fought his way forward from the SQ2 exit to take eighth place and secure the final point.

Lewis Hamilton recovered a few places after losing heavily at the start, while in the other Haas Oliver Bearman also fell early at the bottom of the top 10.

Photos from the Brazilian GP sprint