#BrazilianGP Qualifying: @LewisHamilton beats @Max33Verstappen to sprint pole. #F1

Hamilton Brazilian GP Pole – Lewis Hamilton has beaten his championship-rival Max Verstappen to claim pole for tomorrow’s 100km sprint qualifying race at the Brazilian GP.

The two title-contenders will start the final sprint race of the 2021 Formula 1 season from the front row, with Hamilton set to drop five places on the grid for Sunday’s Sao Paulo Grand Prix from wherever he finishes in the opening race.

In the final qualifying stage, Hamilton set the benchmark of a 1::08.107 with title-rival Verstappen ending up 0.265 seconds adrift of the Briton, whilst Bottas ended up a further 0.362 behind his Mercedes team-mate in the initial flyers.

As is required for the sprint race weekend format, the drivers used the C4 red side-walled softer compounds throughout qualifying, with Verstappen noting he was struggling with overheating tyres halfway through his first flying lap in Q3.

But the Dutchman could not improve on his second hot-lap, bouncing the second corner kerb in the middle of the Senna Esses and then losing more time with a slide out of turn 12 – the last real corner in sector three.

This meant the Red Bull driver did not post a personal best on his final flyer, where Hamilton went faster still – setting a 1:07.934 and 0.438 seconds ahead of Verstappen.

The other Mercedes of Valtteri Bottas qualified in third, in-front of Red Bull Racing’s Sergio Perez, with AlphaTauri’s Pierre Gasly taking fifth place on the grid and for the second consecutive weekend ahead of Ferrari pairing Carlos Sainz and Charles Leclerc who will start the 100km qualifying sprint in sixth and seventh places respectively.

Lando Norris beat his McLaren team-mate Daniel Ricciardo to eighth place, as Alpine F1 Team’s Fernando Alonso rounded out the top ten.

In the second segment, Alpine F1 Team’s Esteban Ocon ended qualifying outside the top ten in 11th place and will start the sprint qualifying race ahead of Aston Martin’s Sebastian Vettel who was 12th.

AlphaTauri’s Yuki Tsunoda lines up 13th on the grid for the sprint and in-front of Alfa Romeo pairing Kimi Raikkonen and Antonio Giovinazzi who start 14th and 15th places respectively.

In Q1, Aston Martin’s Lance Stroll was knocked out right at the end by a late improvement from Alpine’s Ocon and will start the 100km qualifying sprint race in 16th and ahead of Williams Racing duo Nicholas Latifi and George Russell who line-up in 17th and 18th respectively.

Haas F1 Team pairing Mick Schumacher and Nikita Mazepin will start the sprint from the rear.

You can read the full Formula 1 Heineken Grande Premio De Sao Paulo 2021 Qualifying Results Classification at the link: https://www.formula1.com/en/results.html/2021/races/1104/brazil/qualifying.html

2021 Brazilian GP Qualifying – The Top Three

2021 Brazilian GP Pole – Lewis Hamilton, #44, Mercedes AMG Petronas Formula One Team, F1 W12 EQ Performance, 1:07.934:

“I’m so happy to be back in Brazil. It’s been so hard coming from one race to another but today was a super good qualifying day but I’m super happy with it. We’ve got a penalty but we’ll give it everything we’ve got.”

2nd Place – Max Verstappen, #33, Red Bull Racing-Honda, RB16B, +0.438:

“When they take a new engine, naturally they have a bit more power for the weekend. Second is a good position to start from. There are not that many points to gain in the Sprint so I just aim to have a good first lap, and look ahead to Sunday.”

3rd Place – Valtteri Bottas, #77, Mercedes AMG Petronas Formula One Team, F1 W12 EQ Performance, +0.535:

“The main place I was losing to Lewis was Turn 1, 2. It’s a good starting place, hopefully Lap 1 will have lots of action so let’s see.”

You can catch up on the earlier practice session here:

 #BrazilianGP FP1: @LewisHamilton tops time-sheets ahead of @Max33Verstappen. #F1

Read this weekend’s race preview here at the link:

 Formula 1 Heineken Sao Paulo GP 2021 Preview – #F1 #SaoPauloGP #BrazilianGP