Lawson qualifies fifth for Sao Paulo Grand Prix in chaotic session featuring five red flags

Liam Lawson has qualified fifth for the Sao Paulo Grand Prix in a thrilling qualifying session that featured five red flags in wet conditions at Interlagos.

A marathon session that took nearly two hours to complete featured crashes for Franco Colapinto, Carlos Sainz, Alex Albon, Lance Stroll and Fernando Alonso, and also saw several shock eliminations, including Lewis Hamilton in Q1, and Max Verstappen and Sergio Perez in Q2.

Verstappen brings a five-place grid penalty into the weekend, and is left with work to do to minimise his losses to closest title contender Lando Norris, who qualified 16 places ahead on pole.

The three-time World Champion was only able to qualify 12th, and is relegated to 17th once his penalty for taking an additional power unit is applied.

Joining Norris on the front row is George Russell, who jumped to second with his final run. Yuki Tsunoda, who impressed, along with Lawson, in qualifying, will line up third, next to Esteban Ocon, who pipped Lawson by just 0.009 seconds for a spot on the second row.

Lawson is joined on the third row by Charles Leclerc, and has Albon and Oscar Piastri behind, provisionally, pending repairs to the significant damage on the former’s car.

Piastri locked up and slid into the Turn 1 runoff on his final lap, stripping him of the opportnity to challenge for pole. The yellow flags from his off also caught out Leclerc, hence his third row start.

The two Aston Martins complete the top ten, albeit with work required to both following seperate crashes, which may see them take grid penalties.

While the weather was a vast improvement on the conditions seen that delayed Saturday’s qualifying session, there was still plenty of moisture about. The rain briefly cleared at the start of Q1, which got underway at 7.30 am local time, but left a wet circuit with plenty of standing water, seeing teams start on full wets.

Lawson was the first of several drivers to find trouble in the session, locking up his front left and running down the escape road at Turn 12. Zhou Guanyu followed suit shortly after at the same place, as did Lance Stroll.

Valtteri Bottas was the first to make the switch to intermediates as conditions slowly improved in Q1, but struggled to adapt to the conditions and remained in the bottom five, along with teammate Zhou Guanyu, Lewis Hamilton and Russell, and Albon, when Q1 was red flagged with nine minutes remaining.

The first delay came following a crash for Colapinto, who did a full spin on his way into the barriers at Turn 3. He was uninjured in the crash, although his Williams needs significant repairs to its front right ahead of the Grand Prix in five hours.

Once qualifying resumed and the Mercedes drivers improved, Lawson found himself in the drop zone. He initially improved tto 16th and only 0.05 seconds outside the cutoff, but had his time deleted as his improvement came when sector 3 was under yellow when Nico Hulkenberg ran off.

Lawson did improve at the chequered flag to 14th, which knocked Hamilton out in 16th. Zhou, Hulkenberg, Colapinto, and Oliver Bearman were the other drivers eliminated, while Norris scraped through in 15th.

Piastri, Russell and Stroll justified the change to intermediates midway through Q2, taking the top three spots in quick succession, ahead of Verstappen and Lawson, before another red flag was required.

The second delay came as a result of a crash for Sainz at Turn 2, with the Ferrari spinning into the wall rear-first, breaking its rear wind and right-rear suspension.

Six minutes remained in the session on resumption, where Norris, Gasly, Albon, Tsunoda and Sainz sat in the bottom five.

Times tumbled over the following minutes, and Verstappen and Perez found themselves in the elimination zone entering the final moments.

A crash for Lance Stroll prevented any opportunity for the duo to improve, with the session ending early under a red flag, the third of the day.

Bottas missed Q3 by just 0.008 seconds to join Verstappen, Perez, Sainz and Gasly in the bottom five.

Despite crashing, Stroll still progressed to Q3 but was unable to take to the track, leaving just nine cars to compete for pole.

That soon became eight, with Alonso joining his teammate in pit lane after crashing exiting Merggulho, seeing him spin hard into the wall and giving the Aston Martin crew plenty of work to do to repair both cars ahead of the race.

That left just Norris, Piastri, Tsunoda, Lawson, Russell, Albon, Ocon and Leclerc for the seven-minute shootout for pole.

Lawson was the last of the eight cars to take to the track but lost out after Tsunoda slid off at high speed at Turn 4, bringing a double yellow.

He didn’t have time to make the chequered flag regardless, with Albon suffering a high speed crash at Turn 1, slamming into the tyre barriers and severely damaging his Williams, leaving that team, too, with two cars to repair. More worryingly, Albon was seen clutching his hand following the crash.

The incident brought the fifth red flag of the session, 90 minutes into the 60-minute qualifying run, a record now shared with the 2022 Imola Grand Prix since the format was introduced in 2006.

Albon’s crash was the last of the lot, making for a three and a half minute shootout for the last seven cars standing.

Lawson’s final lap saw him jump from eighth to second, and a front-row start became a possibility until Tsunoda followed through to jump to second, just 0.019 seconds off Norris.

Russell then overtook Tsunoda to claim his spot on the front row, before Ocon split the Red Bull duo and took fourth, relegating Lawson to the third row.

Norris improved with his last lap, setting a 1:23.405, to claim pole by 0.173 seconds from his compatriot. Tsunoda was a further half a second off the pace, and three-tenths to the good of Ocon, who pipped Lawson by just 0.009 seconds.

Leclerc improved with his final lap to claim sixth and will start next to Lawson.

The Sao Paulo Grand Prix begins at the rescheduled time of 4.30 am NZST, weather dependent.

Brazilian Grand Prix Provisional Starting Grid

Header Image: Getty Images/ Red Bull Content Pool