Max Verstappen made up for Mexico by claiming is second official career pole at the Brazilian Grand Prix.
The Red Bull driver led all three parts of qualifying at Interlagos as Ferrari and Mercedes couldn’t overpower the Honda on the straights.
Q1
Verstappen leads a Red Bull 1-2 at the front, with the two Ferraris and two Mercedes’ lined up less than half a second behind.
Engine issues for Carlos Sainz left McLaren scrambling to find a fix to a surprise early exit, but the Spaniard would run out of time leaving his 20th on the grid.
Another unexpected Q1 casualty was Daniil Kvyat as the Russian, who was in the top 10 in final practice, slumped to 16th.
Lance Stroll’s weakness on a single lap continued in 17th for Racing Point, followed by the two Williams’ as George Russell led Robert Kubica by half a second.
Q2
Verstappen continues to top the timesheet with a very impressive 1m07.5s to lead Leclerc by three-tenths.
Hamilton was half a second down in fourth for Mercedes as all three leading teams opt to use the soft compound tyre to start the race.
In the fight to make the top 10, Lando Norris continued a bad day for McLaren in P11, missing out by just a hundredth of a second.
Renault also failed to make the cut with Daniel Ricciardo 12th and Nico Hulkenberg 14th. Antonio Giovinazzi would be the meat in the yellow sandwich.
Finally, Sergio Perez completed the order in P15, though those positions were not guaranteed as they waited to see how Leclerc would fare.
Q3
Verstappen seized pole on the first run by just 0.008s from the two Ferraris, that despite almost running off track in the middle sector.
Interestingly, there was not the jump in performance that normally comes from the special engine modes either as no-one made a big improvement compared to Q2.
On the second runs, the Dutchman made up for that earlier error and would improve by a tenth to make his earlier best of 1m07.508s.
Sebastian Vettel will line up alongside on the front row, with Lewis Hamilton jumping up to third with his final effort.
That pushed Leclerc to P4 which becomes P14 after the 10-place penalty for a new engine in his Ferrari.
Valtteri Bottas then will start next to his teammate with Alex Albon fifth in the second Red Bull.
After the usual top midfield runners dropped out of Q2, that opened the door for Pierre Gasly to claim what becomes sixth, joining Albon on the third row.
Haas had something to cheer for the first time in a while as both cars made the top 10 as Romain Grosjean will start seventh and Kevin Magnussen ninth, perhaps offering the chance for their first points since Sochi.
Kimi Raikkonen was the final Q3 participant and the man who won his 2007 world title at Interlagos will start from eighth.
Final results from qualifying are available below:
