It’s the top-10 shootout. Dark clouds are massing overheard, heavy with rain and roaring with thunder.
Chaos is about to visit Interlagos. But in the minutes before the heavens open, the task is simplified.
Get on track as fast as possible.
It’s the fundamental rule of qualifying under threat of wet weather. The earlier you can get you lap in, the better the conditions will be.
And so it inevitably proved.
Max Verstappen was on pole with three purple sectors as the fourth driver on the road, having barged past George Russell exiting the pit lane.
Charles Leclerc followed Russell and ended up a relatively close second to set himself up on the front row.
“That was probably the strangest session of my career,” Leclerc said. “Basically there was the rain coming, the wind changed completely, there was no rain around but the grip changed completely.
“It was extremely difficult. We just had to get to where the grip was.”
The four drivers who were last to exit pit lane never stood a chance. All four were more than a second off the pace, with Oscar Piastri even helplessly sliding off the circuit in the gusts and the drizzle.
One lap was all they got. The clouds burst shortly afterwards, and the session was called off in the tempest, the weather so thick that day may as well have been night.
As it does so often in Brazil, the weather dictated the outcome.
McLAREN MISSES ITS CHANCE
Sometimes these sorts of sessions are defined by someone getting it spectacularly right. Kevin Magnussen’s pole position last season was won in almost exactly these conditions, getting out on track first as rain arrived.
The competitive window was wider this year, but only just. Perhaps the first six drivers had a genuine shot at a competitive time, though Leclerc, who was last among them, said he was close to abandoning his lap for how sketchy it was.
But that only serves to highlight those who got it wrong.
McLaren was gutted to qualify seventh and 10th after badly mistiming their runs.
Despite the team downplaying its chances here — but McLaren does that almost every weekend now — both Lando Norris and Oscar Piastri clearly had the pace to contend for the front row based on practice and the earlier qualifying segments. Norris topped Q2 and looked like to lead the way.
But they exited pit lane seventh and ninth. They were never in with a chance.
“The car was amazing. Easily probably quick enough to be quickest today and on pole,” said a clearly frustrated Norris. “Pretty gutted.
“Another disappointed Saturday, but not a lot we could’ve done.”
Piastri, second-last on the road, was caught out by the wind and drizzle at Juncao, where he spun off the track.
“I just lost a lot of grip,” he said. “I don’t know if it was already raining or what, but I was struggling a lot already on the lap, but I think everyone was.
“I just went in how I thought I did the last lap and slid straight off.”
McLaren looks fast enough to be in with a shout at the podium and perhaps victory again this weekend. It remains to be seen whether qualifying has scuppered those chances for the second week in a row.
SERGIO PÉREZ QUIETLY STEPS IT UP
Verstappen on pole, Sergio Pérez ninth. It could be almost any round of the year.
Pérez arrived in Brazil as a man under pressure, and on paper this result has done little to ease that.
But actually this was as competitive a performance as the Mexican has been promising for the last month.
It was ahead of the United States Grand Prix that Pérez said he’d had a long debrief with his engineers to reassess how he was approaching setting up the car. It paid modest dividends at best in Austin, but in Mexico City he qualified close to Verstappen and would’ve been an almost certain podium-getter before his first-corner crash.
Neither Red Bull Racing driver set a qualifying-style lap in practice, but in Q1 Pérez was 0.232 seconds slower than Verstappen, and he closed that to just 0.057 seconds by Q2.
But then he copped the double disadvantage of being sent out last for his lap and being behind Piastri, whose spun car forced him to back off substantially in the final sector.
“We were just incredibly unlucky today,” Pérez lamented. “I should have been on the front row.
“My lap was very close to Max’s until the last corner, and I found Piastri, so I had to back off my lap. It meant I was just P nowhere. Very unfortunate, because I feel like we had a lot better today.”
Perez was around 0.4 seconds slower than Verstappen before encountering Piastri’s yellow flags. Alone that would’ve put him third, but considering how much conditions were deteriorating by the time he made it around, it’s probably fair to say he would’ve been a front-row starter in calmer weather.
The good news is that he has another shot at qualifying on Saturday, even if it’s only for the sprint, where he might finally be able to prove his progress.
DANNY RIC BOMBS OUT IN Q1
Has the Daniel Ricciardo hype train already derailed after its first stop in Mexico?
After a sensational fourth on the grid last weekend, Ricciardo slumped to 17th and out in Q1.
But it’s not as dire as it suddenly looks.
He was only 0.006 seconds slower than Yuki Tsunoda, who will start one place ahead of him, and 0.05 seconds off a spot in Q2.
This was also the closest Q1 session in the history of the format, with the safe time just 0.453 seconds off top spot.
And Ricciardo put all his margin down to a clumsy mistake on his final lap.
“I nearly had a spin in turn 2. I just came in a bit hot into turn 1. I probably didn’t get the tyres in the right spot for the start of the lap.
“We were definitely faster than what we showed. That first run we were P5 or P6 at the time. I don’t know if we would’ve stayed there, but we were looking like definitely a chance at that point of advancing through to Q2 and potentially Q3.”
In the context of the closeness of the session, it’s not nearly as bad as it looks.
But Ricciardo did hint at a problem that appeared to also trouble him in the United States: the lack of practice time.
With just one hour to try to hone his set-up in a car he’s driven at only four prior weekends, there was also a degree of him being underdone.
“This morning we struggled but we changed the car quite a bit for quali,” he said.
“Frustrating because we were definitely faster than that. Just a few things didn’t work out.”
We’ll see if he can find any more gains in time for sprint qualifying, albeit with set-up locked for the rest of the weekend.
BRAZIL GETS NEW DEAL
The Autódromo José Carlos Pace will remain on the calendar until 2030, with a new five-year contract extension announced for the iconic Brazilian circuit on Friday.
The track had been at risk of falling off the calendar in the last few years as the spot grew frustrated with a lack of investment in its ageing facilities, but recent upgrades and the underwriting of the hosting fee by the Sao Paulo government — which is why it’s no longer the Brazilian Grand Prix — has mounted a sufficient case for retention.
“I am delighted to announce we will be staying at Interlagos until 2030,” F1 CEO Stefano Domenicali said. “I can’t wait for many more years of the wonderful atmosphere that the Brazilian fans bring.
“Brazil has such a rich racing heritage, and this iconic circuit is a favourite of drivers and fans around the world. It embodies everything that is great about racing, and we look forward to seeing how it develops over the years to come to create an even better experience.”
Notable in the press release were references to some of the iconic moments the circuit has delivered, with the statement specifically naming Ayrton Senna’s first home victory in 1991, Kimi Räikkönen winning the 2007 title and Lewis Hamilton’s last-to-first weekend in 2021.
Notably absent was the thrilling 2008 season finale at which Felipe Massa won the race but Hamilton claimed the title on one of the sport’s most memorable afternoons. The image of the emotional Massa taking the top step, calling to his home crowds, is indelibly etched into F1’s collective psyche.
But this year Massa has brought legal action against the sport over the title outcome in response to former F1 CEO Bernie Ecclestone’s claim that he and the FIA knew that that year’s Singapore Grand Prix had been fixed early enough to have done something about it.
The Brazilian star is alleging he is the “victim of a conspiracy” because misconduct was “deliberately ignored”.
Both F1 and the FIA are preparing their legal rebuttals to Massa’s letter of intent to sue.
The Brazilian has been stood down from his F1 ambassadorial duties in the interim.
Regardless of how the legal action is resolved and regardless of your view on the matter, you get the sense that once emotional memory has been tainted.
