McLaren claim 1-2 finish ahead of Championship Rival

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After an exciting qualifying session on Friday, the drivers took to the track for the sprint race in Interlagos. Oscar Piastri started on pole ahead of his teammate, Lando Norris and Charles Leclerc. Did the Aussie stay ahead of his two rivals? See what happened in the session:

• Fernando Alonso, Lance Stroll and Guanyu Zhou all started the Sprint Race from the pit lane after making changes to the car under parc ferme
• It was announced on Friday that Ollie Bearman will replace Kevin Magnussen for the remainder of the Brazilian Grand Prix weekend
• There were talks about whether or not Oscar Piastri will be playing the team game for this sprint
  • With Lando Norris in the contention for the World Drivers Championship, it is interesting to hear the calls that McLaren have been making
  • The team said that they would hold the current positions (Piastri in P1 and Norris in P2) and then potentially change it on the last lap
• Max Verstappen was clearly quicker than Charles Leclerc and was able to overtake him on lap 16 of the sprint race
• Nico Hulkenberg spun on lap 21 and was stuck which brought out a yellow flag in sector 2
  • McLaren capitalized on this and decided to switch their drivers
    • Norris now leads the sprint race ahead of Piastri and Verstappen
• Hulkenberg had to retire from the race and parked his car off the track
  • This brought out the virtual safety car on lap 22
• Verstappen was complaining of Piastri going too slowly under the virtual safety car
• The track was cleared on lap 24 which gave the drivers one lap of racing as the virtual safety car ended
• Lando Norris claimed the sprint race victory ahead of Oscar Piastri and Max Verstappen

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*Max Verstappen has received a five second time penalty for an infringement under the Virtual Safety Car. Verstappen was too close to the car ahead of him (Piastri) before the green light, which has now resulted in the Dutchman being demoted to P4 in the sprint race.

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Brazilian Grand Prix Sprint Race Results

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