McLaren waited until the second to last lap of the São Paulo GP sprint race to order Australian Oscar Piastri to give up his position to his teammate, Englishman Lando Norris. It was the British team’s strategy to secure first and second position in the dispute.
In the fight for the title with Dutchman Max Verstappen, Norris didn’t really like the idea, but he had to accept it to add one more point in the competition held this Saturday (2).
Luckily for the Englishman, shortly after overtaking his teammate, there was a virtual safety car in the race and the Dutchman was unable to threaten the McLaren duo’s positions. After the race, the season leader was still punished with an addition of five seconds to his final time for violating a rule when the safety car was on the track — he tried to overtake Piastri.
With the punishment, Verstappen fell to fourth place and Charles Leclerc inherited third place.
“We work well as a team. I thank Oscar. He should have won. But we are fine,” said Lando Norris.
With the victory in the sprint race, the Englishman adds eight more points in the standings and rises to 323 points. With the five goals scored, Verstappen now has 367, so the gap between the two has fallen to 44 points.
The São Paulo stage is the penultimate sprint race of the year. After the dispute in Interlagos, only the Qatar GP will have this type of race in 2024. It is worth remembering that the top eight in the sprint score points. The winner of the race will receive eight points, while the eighth will receive one.
Also this Saturday (2), later, classification for Sunday’s race takes place. The fight for pole will begin at 3pm (Brasília time). The start of the race will be at 2pm.
