São Paulo GP: Norris handed sprint win by Piastri
McLaren clinched a valuable 1-2 sweep of the São Paulo sprint race, with polesitter Oscar Piastri obligingly handing over the lead and ultimate victory to his team mate Lando Norris.
Max Verstappen was able to pass Charles Leclerc in the closing stages as the Ferrari struggled with tyre wear. However the Red Bull was foiled in his attempt to catch Piastri by a late VSC for Nico Hulkenberg's retirement.
Verstappen's team mate Sergio Perez recovered into the points in P8 after a poor qualifying, but Lewis Hamilton looked strangely inert and the Mercedes finished in the same position it had started, P11.
The grid for Saturday's 24-lap São Paulo sprint race was headed by Oscar Piastri and Lando Norris after McLaren proved uncatchable in yesterday's qualifying session. Ferrari's Charles Leclerc was best of the rest ahead of Max Verstappen in the Red Bull which started alongside him on the second row. There were only 17 cars on the grid after Aston Martin team mates Fernando Alonso and Lance Stroll together with Sauber's Zhou Guanyu all had work done on their cars overnight, consigning them to a pit lane start.
When the lights went out, the McLarens went into the first corner in the same order in which they had lined up. Leclerc and Verstappen also fell into line behind them after a brief squabble into turn 1, followed by Carlos Sainz and George Russell. Behind them, Haas stand-in Oliver Bearman lost out to Liam Lawson but then pulled off a neat jump on Alex Albon in the Williams for a rapid return to P10.
Outside the top ten, Sergio Perez quickly picked up a spot by passing Albon's team mate Franco Colapinto. He subsequently passed both Haas cars to slot in behind Lawson. But it had been a bad start for Lewis Hamilton with the Mercedes dropping behind the Red Bull at the start and spending the rest of the race unsuccessfully seeking a way to recover lost positions.
After initially pulling away, Piastri's advantage narrowed to less than a second which backed Norris up into Leclerc clutches, making Norris nervous. He appealed to the McLaren pit wall for team orders to come into play as Overheating tyres forced Norris to back off. That allowed Piastri to move out of DRS, until McLaren ordered him to bring Norris back within range to help him hold off Leclerc and Verstappen.
"I'm not sure what we are doing here, I thought we spoke about this," a disgruntled Norris said over the radio. "Keep doing what you are doing," the team responded.
Lap 13 saw a mistake by Leclerc which meant he fell out of DRS range of Norris, but the Ferrari did just about manage to stay ahead of Verstappen. Leclerc's tyres were looking increasingly distressed, but Verstappen made a mistake into turn 1 on lap 16 and lost ground. The Dutch driver quickly regrouped and on lap 18 he was able to finally pick off Leclerc for P3.
McLaren still seemed strangely reluctant to order Piastri to cede the lead before the final lap. The situation was further escalated on lap 21 when Hulkenberg pulled over to the side of the track with an apparent exhaust problem. The threat of a safety car forced McLaren to rapidly implement the swap between Piastri and Norris to give the Briton the lead.
Race control very considerately held off declaring a Virtual Safety Car until McLaren had taken care of business. Under the VSC, Piastri allowed Norris to pull away and Verstappen lodged a complaint about the team tactics in play. The VSC was finally rescinded at the start of the final lap as the leaders went through turn 3 leaving too little time for Verstappen to make a move on Piastri.
Norris duly picked up the victory with Piastri second ahead of Verstappen. Leclerc was four seconds back by the time he reached the line ahead of team mate Sainz, with Russell, Pierre Gasly and Perez picking up the remaining points. Just missing out were Lawson and Albon, while Hamilton's race had been curiously poor as he finished where he had started - in P11, just ahead of Colapinto.
Verstappen was subsequently handed a five second penalty for a VSC infringement that dropped him back behind Leclerc in e final results. The result means that Norris closes to within 44 points of Verstappen in the drivers championship. But there wasn't much time to celebrate before the teams rushed off to begin preparations for qualifying for Sunday's Grand Prix, in which Verstappen will have to overcome a five place penalty for taking an extra engine.
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