Oscar Piastri called it “weird.” Interlagos called it something else entirely.
On a slippery, stubborn Saturday in São Paulo, the McLaren driver went from Sprint heartbreak to a qualifying session that refused to obey the usual logic, ending up fourth on the grid for Sunday’s Brazilian Grand Prix. Lando Norris banked an assured pole. Kimi Antonelli shocked plenty by sticking it on the front row. Charles Leclerc will line up third, with Piastri alongside on the second row.
The Australian’s day pivoted on the Sprint, where he exited Turn 2 with a touch too much throttle and a fraction too much kerb, and the rear bit back. The MCL-whatever-it’s-called-this-week flicked round and slid into the barrier on the outside of Turn 3. Moments later Nico Hülkenberg and Franco Colapinto were caught by the same trap.
Piastri didn’t sugar-coat it afterward: yes, he’d used that kerb a lap earlier; no, he shouldn’t have gone near it again with the track in that state. He reckoned the cars ahead may have dragged extra water over the strip, turning a legal line into a loaded dice roll. “A little bit wide, nothing major,” he said, before conceding the consequences were anything but. Classic Interlagos—one of those places where the surface, the weather and the rhythm can gang up on you between corners.
With Norris winning the Sprint, that result stretched the title gap to nine points in the Briton’s favor. Piastri parked the annoyance quickly. There was a qualifying session to salvage.
Except qualifying didn’t play ball either. Soft tyres flatly refused to deliver the usual step gains. Piastri’s final effort in Q3, a 1:09.886, was a tick slower than his best in Q2 and barely quicker than he’d managed in Q1. Across the garage, Norris also saw tiny margins through the segments—1:09.656 in Q1, a whisper better in Q2—before dragging a proper lap out of the car when it mattered with a 1:09.511 to take pole by 0.174s after running wide on his first Q3 push.
Call it temperature windows, call it drizzle dust, call it Interlagos being Interlagos. Whatever the label, it made for a qualifying session that asked a lot and gave little back. Piastri called it bizarre—one of those rare hours where the tyre’s sweet spot felt like it lived on a different time zone. The flow he had in practice went missing, and even when the line looked right the clock refused to play along.
That isn’t to say the #81 camp is lost. McLaren’s baseline speed is still there—Norris proved as much—and the Senna S is a brilliant equalizer off the start. From the second row, Piastri’s Sunday is very much alive. The long drag to Turn 4 offers a slipstream, the infield rewards a car that rotates crisply, and McLaren have been sharp on strategy in these knife-edge conditions all year.
More intriguing is the company around him. Antonelli on the front row is a story by itself; a teenager parked among title fighters at one of the most unforgiving circuits on the calendar. Leclerc, meanwhile, has been quietly efficient here, and you don’t need a reminder of how opportunistic he can be into the Senna S if there’s half a whiff. Add Max Verstappen somewhere in recovery mode after his own rough qualifying, and the chessboard gets busy.
For Piastri, the brief is simple: bank a clean launch, get the elbows out through the first half-lap, and make sure Norris isn’t allowed to run off into clean air. After that, it’s about managing a track that evolves in streaks, saving enough tyre for the messy middle stint, and being ready to pounce when the clouds inevitably change the script.
Saturday’s missteps were costly, no question. But Interlagos has a habit of flipping weekends on their head by Sunday afternoon. If Piastri converts a “weird” Saturday into a disciplined, uncompromising race, the title fight resets just as quickly as it stretched. And if the last 24 hours taught us anything, it’s that the margin between caution and commitment here is only as wide as that Turn 2 kerb.
