LIVE F1. Will Max Verstappen, who starts on pole, also win the Brazilian GP after the sprint race? | Sport

The start signal for the actual GP of Brazil will be given at 6 p.m. Belgian time. Max Verstappen also dominated the Interlagos circuit in recent days: he won the sprint race and will soon start on pole. Will Verstappen get into trouble soon? You can follow everything closely in this live blog.

8 extra World Cup points to Max Verstappen’s account. The Dutchman wins his 4th sprint race of the season in Brazil. Norris remains second, Perez is third on the podium.

Verstappen is not completely out of harm’s way yet. The Dutchman has a 1.8 second lead over Norris. Although the Brit has to come quickly. Six laps to go.

Almost half way. Perez has Russell in a duel for third place. He can also go to Norris to achieve a new one-two for Red Bull.

The McLaren is starting to warm up. Norris opens his DRS and passes Russell again for P2. The gap to Verstappen is one and a half seconds after five of the twenty-four laps.

Verstappen has an excellent start and has already caught Norris in the first corner. The Dutchman on number one. While Norris also quickly loses his second place to George Russell.

Below is the starting grid for the sprint race. Lando Norris starts on pole, Max Verstappen starts next to it. In the second row we see Sergio Perez and George Russell.

Good news from Brazil. The sprint race, at 7:30 PM Belgian time tonight, and the race itself, tomorrow from 6 PM, would be finished in dry conditions. The race would even be run under the sun.

Oof. There is a chance of a few showers on Saturday morning, but it is expected to be dry during the Sprint Shootout (3 p.m. our time) and the sprint race (7:30 p.m. our time).

More and more images are emerging of the apocalyptic conditions in Brazil. While spectators wearing ponchos stand in the rain and wind, large parts of a roof simply blow away in the background.

“We didn’t know what exactly was going to happen during qualifying. But this weather was insane,” says Verstappen. “Our laps felt terrible, the wind shifted and we lost a lot of time. It was very hectic on that last lap.”

The stormy weather also causes damage. The roof of a grandstand set up in the last corner of Interlagos has collapsed. Images circulating on X – the former Twitter – show people running away for fear of being hit. It is not yet known whether there are any victims. It would have been ten hellish minutes when the storm hung right over the circuit immediately after qualifying.

Max Verstappen starts the São Paulo Grand Prix on Sunday from the first starting box. The world champion clocked the fastest time early in the decisive part of qualifying, after which the weather completely changed.

The rain hung thickly in the air above the Autódromo José Carlos Pace. But the dark clouds did not drop anything during the first session of qualifying. And so it took place under relatively clinical circumstances. With Alfa Romeo and AlphaTauri as the biggest victims. Both teams immediately lost their drivers. Daniel Ricciardo was therefore unable to match his strong performance at the Mexican Grand Prix a week later. He will start from seventeenth place on Sunday in São Paulo.

And the rain also stayed away in Q2. While Mercedes driver George Russell had been the fastest in Q1, it was now the turn of McLaren driver Lando Norris to set the fastest time, shortly followed by Verstappen. At the same time, Ferrari and Aston Martin also performed well. In Q3, only the ten drivers of the five top teams were left in the battle for pole position.

They were close together, so the ten remaining drivers had better set a good time quickly under the now pitch-black sky (“It’s night,” said Fernando Alonso over the on-board radio). Verstappen had this in mind. had quickly clocked a lap of 1.10.7, which put him well ahead of the rest. Afterwards it actually started to storm. The bizarre darkness and the accompanying rain then raised a red flag. Qualifying was finally canceled. And as a result, Verstappen’s ingenuity was decisive in the battle for pole position. He won a qualification where not everyone could have delivered the desired performance in Q3. For Ferrari driver Charles Leclerc, the damage was more than limited. He starts from second place. There are two Aston Martins on the second row, with the Canadian Lance Stroll surprisingly in third place. For the battle for second place, Hamilton (fifth) was considerably more lucky than Sergio Perez (ninth).

The first and only free practice in Brazil has raised a lot of questions heading into qualifying later today. Carlos Sainz and Charles Leclerc finished at the top for Ferrari, while Max Verstappen didn’t even attempt to come close. The world champion finished in P16.

For the region in which the Autódromo José Carlos Pace is located, code orange applies throughout Friday. Prior to FP1, the wind was already blowing hard over a cloudy São Paulo, where rain is expected, especially later today during qualifying (from 7 p.m. Belgian time). In that respect, it does not help the teams that this is the last sprint weekend of the year, and no major changes are allowed to be made to the setup of the cars after this only hour of training.

That made it a busy session at Interlagos. Verstappen was the first to come out on the hard tires, the compound he would use throughout training. On ‘white’, he and teammate Sergio Pérez made it 1-2 for Red Bull Racing early on, but the pecking order changed when the other teams switched to mediums and the softest rubber.

At the end of practice, the two Ferraris were at the top of the rankings, with Carlos Sainz (1.11.732) just over a tenth ahead of teammate Charles Leclerc. George Russell was not far behind, but the Mercedes driver drove his impressive time on mediums. Not everyone went for a run on softs, which gave the times list a distorted picture. Verstappen and Pérez settled for P16 and P18 respectively, while the McLarens looked fast but finished at the bottom. On course for P1, Oscar Piastri dived into the pit lane.

Max Verstappen is already looking forward to next season. In an interview with Interlagos Before the GP in Brazil, the Dutchman says that he would be satisfied with both Sergio Perez and Daniel Ricciardo as a teammate. “I had had a great relationship with both of them. They have been great teammates and ultimately it is not up to me to make these kinds of decisions because I am very focused on my own performance.”

The 33-year-old Perez still has a contract until 2024. But due to his poorer results, discussions about his future have been sparked. Ricciardo was already Verstappen’s teammate between 2016 and 2018. His return to the Red Bull group with AlphaTauri this season makes him the favorite to replace Perez.

Friday November 3
3:30 PM – 4:30 PM: First free practice
7:00 PM – 8:00 PM: Qualification

Saturday November 4
3:00 PM – 4:30 PM: Sprint race qualifying
7.30 pm: Sprint race

Sunday November 5
6 p.m.: Race