SÃO PAULO — Oscar Piastri dramatically crashed out of Saturday’s Interlagos sprint race as title rival Lando Norris claimed the full haul of points with a decisive victory.
Piastri spun coming out of Turn 2 and went straight into the barrier, ending his race on the spot.
The Australian appeared to go through a spot of water that had been dispersed onto the curb by Norris’s car as he had gone through the corner moments earlier.
Norris held off the charging Mercedes of Andrea Kimi Antonelli late on to take home the eight points on offer in the shortened sprint race.
The result extended his lead over Piastri to nine points. It’s his biggest title lead since the Chinese Grand Prix, when he led Max Verstappen by eight points.
Saturday’s sprint might have signaled the beginning of the end of Verstappen’s status as a wild-card title contender, as he finished fourth, meaning he is now 39 points off Norris with four races to run, starting with the São Paulo Grand Prix on Sunday.
The contrasting fortunes of Norris and Piastri continued the remarkable turnaround in the seasons of the McLaren drivers. Two weeks ago Norris ended Piastri’s six month spell in the lead of the championship by winning the Mexican Grand Prix.
Nico Hülkenberg and Alpine’s Franco Colapinto also spun coming through the same corner moments afterwards.
«I will try to put this behind [me],» Piastri told Sky Sports about his crash.
«There’s a lot more points on offer tomorrow, so the better job I can do in Qualifying to get a good starting spot, the better it will be.»
Colapinto’s crash destroyed part of the barrier, meaning the sprint race was briefly halted under a red flag. Norris perfectly managed the safety car restart which followed to win the race, with Antonelli not able to get close enough to challenge late on.
Antonelli finished ahead of George Russell, having held his teammate off at the restart, which will give Mercedes hope of challenging for pole position and victory in the race itself.
With qualifying for the grand prix to follow Saturday afternoon, Norris will look to continue his hot form lead further ahead of the Las Vegas Grand Prix, the first of three races in three weeks to end the season.
Charles Leclerc snatched fifth away from Aston Martin’s Fernando Alonso late on. Alonso had enjoyed an entertaining and rare on track battle with Verstappen at the restart.
Lewis Hamilton was seventh ahead of Alpine’s Pierre Gasly in the final points paying position for the sprint, grabbing eighth off Aston Martin’s Lance Stroll in the closing laps.
While Sunday’s grand prix gives out full points for the top 10 finishers, the shortened sprint offers only eight points to the top eight finishers in an 8-7-6-5-4-3-2-1 format.
