Following his sprint race win in the morning, McLaren's Lando Norris took his second pole position of the Brazilian weekend after heading all three qualifying sessions this afternoon.

In the closing seconds of Q3 he was joined on the front row by Mercedes driver Kimi Antonelli, while Ferrari's Charles Leclerc starts in the top three of the grid for the third consecutive time.

Conditions remained tricky throughout the qualifying hour, with high winds and track temperatures that peaked at 41 degrees centigrade.

After a slight delay to repair barriers that were damaged in a preceding support race, Q1 got underway with both the soft and the medium tyres seen on track, although all the drivers finished the first session on the softest compound.

The biggest surprise was the elimination of Red Bull's Max Verstappen in Q1, while Haas driver Oliver Bearman impressed by topping the time sheets for the majority of Q1 and Q2.

In the crucial Q3 session Piastri was fastest after the first runs, while Norris overcame a lock-up in his first run that put him last to then set his personal best time of the weekend when it counted most.

Mercedes driver George Russell adopted a different tactic by choosing the medium tyre for his final Q3 run - the only driver to do so - using it to good effect to qualify sixth.

The Pirelli Pole Position Award was given to Lando Norris by André Lamoglia. The Brazilian actor from Rio de Janeiro played a student in the highly successful Netflix series 'Élite'. Lamoglia also takes the lead role in 'Rulers of Fortune', which has just come out on Netflix. In this latest series, set in his home city of Rio, Lamoglia plays an unscrupulous criminal in the high stakes world of gambling.

Norris converted pole to the win in a complex sprint race that was interrupted by a lengthy red flag period after only six laps. Overnight rain had left damp patches on the track, especially in the first corner, but all the drivers selected either the medium or soft slick for the 24-lap sprint race that got underway at 11:00 local time in track temperatures of just 25 degrees.

Interestingly, out of the top eight, those on the right-hand side of the grid (including the polesitter) chose the medium tyre whereas those on the left-hand side selected the soft. In total, 14 drivers started on medium and six started on soft.

The turning point of the race was when Piastri went off at Turn 2 after touching the kerb, followed by Alpine's Franco Colapinto and Sauber's Nico Hulkenberg, causing the red flag period for barrier repairs.

Norris, in the lead, chose to switch to the soft tyres at the restart, whereas the two Mercedes chasing him did the opposite and switched from soft to medium.

Over the remaining laps Norris had to manage this compound to fend off his pursuers, with the task made more difficult by the cool conditions, increasingly gusting winds, and damp patches: all of which can decrease grip levels and cause cars to slide more.

The race ended under yellow flags following a big crash for Sauber's Gabriel Bortoleto, with Norris's second sprint win (after Miami) stretching his championship lead over Piastri to nine points.

Mario Isola: "The best track conditions that we saw at the end of yesterday were completely reset by the rain that fell overnight and this morning. So compared to yesterday, track evolution wasn't progressive.

As a result, lap times today were slower not only than yesterday but also than the equivalent sessions last year. A contributory factor today was also the gusting wind, which was a real challenge in terms of car balance.

In qualifying though, we finally got to see the performance gap between medium and soft, which was estimated at around two to three tenths of a second, in line with our simulations. That gap wasn't clear yesterday, also because of the reduced number of laps run on the softest tyre.

Once more we head into a weekend where there's not going to be a lot of time difference between a one-stop and a two-stop strategy. If going for a one-stopper, the best choice would seem to be soft and medium: even though the difference is quite marginal due to the wear rates. The low track temperatures make it trickier to bring the hard tyre into the correct temperature window, and this compound is also more affected by a lack of grip from the surface here.

Starting on the soft tyre, a reasonably early pit stop for the medium: roughly between laps 24 and 30. The rear wear rate seen on the C4 today is enough to have an impact on traction, so this requires careful management. It wouldn't have been a surprise to see drivers struggle with this in the sprint race this morning, had it not been for the red flag stoppage that allowed a switch to the medium.

The two-stopper options tomorrow also include the softest compounds, starting with the C4 to gain an initial advantage, before moving to the C3 for the middle stint, and then leaving the choice between soft and medium open for the run to the flag."

Check out our Saturday gallery from Interlagos here.