Formula 1 News: Piastri gifts Norris Sprint Race win in Brazil

Oscar Piastri gifted his McLaren teammate Lando Norris a win in the Sao Paulo Brazil Sprint Race at Interlagos and then the pro-British Race Officials, who want British driver Lando Norris to win the Driver’s title, did their best to hurt Max Verstappen in third.

–by Mark Cipolloni–

By waiting to throw the Virtual Safety car flag for Nico Hulkenberg’s abandoned Haas until the McLaren told Piastri to let Norris past.  As soon as Norris was past, the officials put out the Virtual Safety Car to ensure Verstappen had no chance to pass Oscar Piastri for 2nd.

“Not proud about it but we worked well as a team so thanks to Oscar,” said Norris.  “Oscar deserved it, but we are doing what we have to do. Great pace, so looking forward to the race tomorrow. The dirty air costs you a lot of lap time, but it felt good – I think we were clearly quicker than the guys behind.”

“Was a bit tricky to be honest, the racing line was incredibly narrow and you missed it by a tire’s width you were in all sorts of trouble,” said Piastri. “The pace looked okay, but the Ferrari was quick at the start and Max was quick at the end. We are in decent shape.”

Verstappen appeared to have the fastest car but took over half the race to get past the Ferrari of Charles Leclerc and by then the race was almost over.

“It was quite a tricky race, but I think the pace is quite good so I’m pleased with that,” said Verstappen. “It took quite a while with Charles, but it’s promising, it’s good. But tomorrow might rain, so lots of unknowns, but today was good.”

Norris gained two points on Verstappen in the championship, and Verstappen’s lead is now down to 45 points.  But the bad news for McLaren is that Verstappen has decent race pace – and Ferrari do not…

Leclerc held on for 4th, 5.6s behind Norris, while George Russell rounded out the top-5 for Mercedes.

The Race Stewards are going to penalize Verstappen further because it was announced they will investigate him for Virtual Safety Car infringement even though he gained no advantage.  British Johnny Herbert is one of the race Stewards and he does everything in his power to help British drivers like Lando Norris.

“On everything we can see, it looks okay,” said Red Bull boss Christian Horner, but Herbert will dig for something.

So, that was the Sprint – and so far we know tire wear is going to be a big issue tomorrow in the race. Ferrari don’t look as quick as they did in Mexico, while Red Bull look much better in race trim than over one lap.

But McLaren are undeniably the fastest cars at the moment, and perfectly willing to enact team orders.

2024 Sao Paulo Brazil Sprint Race Results – 24 Laps