Sprint qualifying continued on Friday's Brazilian Grand Prix schedule, and the big winner was, in the end, Oscar Piastri.
The first laps of SQ1 were interesting and it was already obvious that this stage could bring a real fireworks: on the constantly improving track we saw Liam Lawson in the lead, then Oscar Piastri, and finally Lando Norris won this stage in front of his teammate and Alexander Albon. Among those eliminated were the two Aston Martins, Yuki Tsunoda, Guanyu Zhou and Esteban Ocon.
In SQ2, Norris opened up again at the front, and behind him Oscar Piastri and Max Verstappen closed in, there were no questions about the top three. But behind them, almost anything could happen, anything could have unfolded. Who would have thought, for example, that Oliver Bearman, who came in for Kevin Magnussen due to illness, would easily move into SQ3? However, we were no longer surprised by the elimination of Sergio Perez, but rather by the surprising elimination of Lewis Hamilton and Nico Hülkenberg - given that both teammates had advanced further - and next to them, Franco Collapinto and Valtteri Bottas could not continue the fight.
In the last stage of the sprint qualifying, the battle was already taking place on soft compounds, and the balance of power changed: Oscar Piastri was the fastest, and he will start from the first starting position in the sprint of the Brazilian Grand Prix, overtaking Lando Norris and Charles Leclerc.
