© Getty Images2024 São Paulo Grand Prix - Saturday Report Extreme weather conditions delay qualifying session
MaxVerstappentookasolidfourthplace,whileChecoclimbedfrom13thtoeighthattheflagintheSprintRaceattheSãoPauloGrandPrix,butwhilethe24-lapracewentaheadsmoothly,extremeweatherconditionsinthelateafternoonledtoqualifyingbeingrepeatedlydelayeduntileventually,almostthreehoursafterthescheduledstart,thesessionwaspostponeduntilSunday.
In the Sprint, Max Verstappen crossed the line third behind the McLarens of Lando Norris and Oscar Piastri, but a post-race call to the Stewards’ room led to the Dutchman being hit with a five-second time penalty that dropped him to fourth place.
While Piastri led away from pole ahead of Norris, Max found himself bottled up behind Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc in the opening stages of the 24-lap race. But when the Monegasque driver made a small error at the start of lap 18, Max pounced. He closed up to the Ferrari in Turn 3 and then muscled his way around the outside in Turn 4 to grab third place.
Max then began to eat into the gap to second-placed Norris, but when Haas’ Nico Hülkenberg stopped at Turn 8 and the threat of a late Safety Car appeared, McLaren pulled the strategic trigger and swapped its drivers.
The time lost making the switch gave Max the chance to attack Piastri, but on the penultimate lap, a VSC was imposed to allow for the recovery of Hülkenberg’s car.
The gaps briefly froze, but when the caution was ending, Max was deemed to have gone below the allowed minimum time and gained an advantage. He crossed the line in P3 but was dropped to fourth behind Leclerc by the race officials.
Checo, meanwhile, stormed through from 13th on the grid to take P8. The Mexican made a good start to make his way past Mercedes’ Lewis Hamilton and Williams’ Alex Albon, and as the race unfolded, he made the most of his good pace to power past Haas’ Nico Hülkenberg and Oliver Bearman. Finally, with five laps remaining, he made a brave lunge past VCARB’s Liam Lawson stick in Turn 1 to take the final point on offer.
In the hour leading up to qualifying for the race, intense rain swept into the Interlagos area, and the start of the session was initially delayed for half an hour. After another half-hour delay and with a weather window in sight, Race Control optimistically messaged that its plan was to start qualifying an hour after the scheduled start. But the rain soon intensified, and after a sequence of further delays, the session was officially postponed at 1645 local. The battle for grid position will be confirmed shortly, but at the time of writing, Qualifying has been proposed for 0800 local time.
