Lando Norris took pole position for the São Paulo Grand Prix in a dramatic and incident-packed qualifying session that could presage a major shift in his world championship battle with Max Verstappen. It puts the McLaren driver in the best possible position to make a huge move in closing the gap to Verstappen, who was unlucky and caught out in qualifying and finished 12th, which will mean he will start the race from 17th with a five-place grid penalty.

Qualifying had been postponed from Saturday after a torrential rainstorm had engulfed Interlagos and instead took place on Sunday morning. When it got going, once more in the wet, Verstappen was unable to finish his final quick lap in Q2 when the session was stopped after a crash by Lance Stroll. The world champion now faces an enormous task in the race.

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Mercedes’ George Russell was in second, Red Bull’s Yuki Tsunoda in third, with an excellent run by his rookie teammate Liam Lawson in fifth and Alpine’s Esteban Ocon finishing fourth. With further heavy rain predicted, the race itself has been brought to 12.30pm local time/3.30pm UK time.

After a host of crashes and five red-flag delays in qualifying, many teams have a huge task in repairing cars while, given conditions are expected to be difficult in the race, further drama is on the cards. In the wet weather, Lewis Hamilton, who usually revels in difficult conditions, took a shock exit in Q1, finishing 16th.

The session opened once more in persistent rain, if nowhere near as severe as it had been on Saturday, with the entire field attempting to set times in case conditions deteriorated. It was delayed with a red flag when Williams’ Franco Colapinto went off, losing the rear at Curva do Sol.

With time already at a premium, given the race’s early start, the delay cut further into the pre-race period. When running resumed, Norris just escaped elimination, coming home in 15th at the end of the session, while Verstappen had gone quickest. The British driver’s title hopes had, for those few moments, been hanging in the balance.

The rain had begun to ease in Q2 and the teams took to the intermediate tyres, but conditions remained enormously treacherous, with Carlos Sainz also losing control at turn two and hitting the barriers. Norris once more was threatened in the drop zone with five minutes on the clock and the track improving. The British driver quickly set a good time but late drama caught out Verstappen.

With the Dutchman 12th and yet to put in another quick lap, Stroll went off at Curva do Sol and the session was red-flagged after an approximately 40-second delay before ending with Verstappen unable to improve his place.

He was furious the session had not been stopped immediately, potentially offering a chance to restart it and for him to complete a final lap. “It’s stupid, it’s ridiculous,” Verstappen said. “If a car hits a wall it needs to be a straight red flag, I don’t know why it has to be 40 seconds for a red flag to come out.”

In Q3, with the rain increasing, Fernando Alonso crashed out at Mergulho, just after Norris had set the quickest time. The rain then eased but Alex Albon suffered a major crash at turn one, causing the session to be stopped once more, with three minutes left. With time for two final laps Norris went hard, improving his time on both laps to claim pole with a 1 min 23.405sec lap, almost two-tenths up on Russell, who secured a strong second, while Norris’s teammate Oscar Piastri locked up and dropped to eighth.

McLaren had already enjoyed a strong opening to the weekend with Norris taking the win in the sprint race, albeit one conceded by Piastri who had led for all but two laps. In so doing, they secured a one-two from Verstappen, who finished third but was given a penalty for failing to reach the minimum time under the VSC and was dropped to fourth. The 27-year-old has the grid penalty for taking a new engine in Brazil.

The sprint victory continued Norris’s comeback at Verstappen in the championship battle and was vital in once more edging closer to him. He took a further three points from his rival, closing the gap to 44-points with 112 available from one further sprint and the four races to come.

Verstappen had looked strong in qualifying and will be optimistic he has a chance to at least come through the field in Sunday’s race. He was comfortably quicker than the Ferraris in the sprint race and showed similarly strong pace in qualifying, but has a mountain to climb. Damage limitation is now the task, his aim to close down the gap to Norris and minimise the points differential.

Elsewhere, Charles Leclerc was fifth for Ferrari, Albon sixth for Williams and Alonso and Stroll were ninth and 10th for Aston Martin. Yuki Tsunoda was 11th for Red Bull, Valtteri Bottas 12th for Sauber, Sergio Pérez 14th for Red Bull and Sainz 15th. Oliver Bearman and Nico Hülkenberg were 17th and 19th for Haas. Colapinto 18th and Guanyu Zhou 20th.