Brazilian Grand Prix 2024: Lando Norris wins the sprint ahead of Oscar Piastri

Lando Norris took two points off Max Verstappen’s championship lead by winning the sprint race at the Sao Paulo Grand Prix.

Norris was let through by his teammate Oscar Piastri two laps before the end of the race on the team’s orders after an exciting four-way battle for the lead from the start.

But McLaren made the change far more exciting than necessary, delaying it until Verstappen’s Red Bull had overtaken Charles Leclerc’s Ferrari with six laps to go.

The result narrows Verstappen’s lead to 45 points, with the Grand Prix still on Sunday. Qualifying for this will take place on Saturday at 6:00 p.m. GMT.

The top four were neck and neck for the first 18 laps of the race, with Piastri ahead of Leclerc and Verstappen ahead of Norris.

McLaren had planned the race so that Norris could take the lead in order to maximize his points gain over Verstappen.

On lap three they obviously had the opportunity to swap drivers, with Norris 1.6 seconds ahead of Leclerc at this point.

But they didn’t take it lying down and soon Leclerc got within a second of Norris, allowing him to use the DRS overtaking aid to keep him close and threatening.

The obvious choice seemed to have been to let Norris through to Piastri early on and then let Piastri give Leclerc the DRS so he could defend against Verstappen.

Instead, they kept Norris in second and Leclerc began to fall back until Verstappen regained full control of his gearbox on lap 17 and used the DRS to drive past him into turn four on lap 18.

At first, McLaren seemed to have the pace to stay more than a second ahead of Verstappen.

But there was more danger when Nico Hulkenberg’s Haas pulled away on lap 21, with three laps to go.

It was clear that a virtual or real safety car would be deployed, and if this had happened before McLaren swapped places, Piastri might have won the race.

In the end they managed to make the swap just before the VSC was deployed and the race continued for a final half lap.

Norris said: “I’m not proud of it but we worked well together as a team. I thank Oscar. Today was the result we wanted, Oscar deserved it, but I thank him and the team.”

“It was a bit of a yo-yo. The dirty air costs you a lot of lap time. I felt a little faster, but I couldn’t get close enough to pass. I felt like we were quicker than the guys behind, but it’s difficult to do the sprint to know how much (the tires) have to handle.”

Verstappen was charged with a possible breach of VSC rules, which could result in a penalty, apparently for attempting to challenge Piastri on the final lap restart.

Verstappen, who has a five-place grid penalty for the Grand Prix, said: “It was a pretty tricky race but the pace was always good. With Charles it took a little too long because when everyone is on the DRS train it’s very difficult to attack, but then he started making a few mistakes and I was able to use that to attack.

Leclerc took fourth place ahead of his teammate Carlos Sainz, who was behind the pace of the leaders.

Mercedes driver George Russell, Alpine’s Pierre Gasly and Red Bull’s Sergio Perez – from 13th on the grid – completed the first eight points.