Lando Norris will start from pole position for the Brazilian Grand Prix on Sunday after a truncated qualifying session in wet conditions which saw five red flags. Championship leader Max Verstappen, who is 44 points clear of Norris at the top of the standings, was running 12th when the second qualifying session was red-flagged. That means that with a five-place penalty for fitting a sixth engine, the Dutchman will start 17th in the Grand Prix later on Sunday.

Verstappen was incensed after the red flag was signalled some 40 seconds after Lance Stroll hit the wall, which ruled out the chances of restarting.

“It’s just, the car hits the wall, it needs to be a straight red,” he told Sky.

“I don’t understand why it needs to take 30, 40 seconds for the red flag to come out.

“I don’t know, honestly? It’s so stupid to talk about. It’s ridiculous. Our focus now is on the race, what’s happened happened.”

Norris was in danger of being eliminated from the first session of qualifying which had been held over from Saturday because of the weather but held his nerve in his McLaren and with a change to intermediate tyres dominated the next two sessions.

“There was a lot going on today but I’m super, super happy because I was struggling at the start of qualifying,” Norris said.

He will start alongside George Russell’s Mercedes with Red Bull driver Yuki Tsunoda and Alpine’s Esteban Ocon on the second row of the grid.

Seven-time world champion Lewis Hamilton struggled in his Mercedes and didn’t make it into the second session and will start from 15th.

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