Magnussen’s pole position epic in the rain lottery at the Brazilian GP

The third qualifying session of the Brazilian GP – the 21st race of this year’s Formula 1 – was interrupted with 8 minutes to go due to the departure of George Russell from Mercedes. By then, nine of the ten riders had entered Q3 on the soft dry tyre, even though it started to rain. The only one with intermediate tires was Charles Leclerc.

Kevin Magnussen was one of the last to do his fast lap and used the ideal line the driest before it started to rain.

Immediately after his fast lap, Russell got out and showed the red flags for a few minutes until the Mercedes drove off the sand trap. However, in the intervening minutes the rain increased, it was not possible to run dry tires and of course it was impossible to beat times.

Thus Magnussen achieved a monumental pole position with one of the least competitive cars on the grid, with Max Verstappen lagging alongside him on the front row of the start and Russell and Norris on second – as the former of the two Brits had done his fast He managed a lap before his exit.

Thus, in the changeable weather conditions of Interlagos, where the timing of the entrance to the track in terms of rain and the condition of the tarmac was crucial, the qualifying tests ended practically eight minutes before the end of Q3.

In the first stint the drivers took to the track on the Intermediate wet tires and for the next ten minutes as the track dried Leclerc, Verstappen, Alonso, Verstappen again and Hamilton shared the lead on these tyres.

But in the last five minutes, Pierre Gasly made it clear – with the first – that the time had come for the slicks and after a feverish exit from all drivers on track, McLaren’s Lando Norris won for the first time ahead of Hamilton, Alonso and Vettel . It was a matter of timing and eventually Latifi, Chow, Bottas, Tsunoda and Schumacher were out.

The second session started in the same conditions and although it started to grind more and more, especially after the middle, all riders stayed on soft slicks until the end – fresh or used.

Initially, Verstappen and Alonso alternated at the top, but in the end Verstappen clocked a time of 1:10.881 – that was 9mm faster than Sainz and 69mm faster than Leclerc. Albon, Gasli, Vettel, Ricciardo and Stroll were ruled out as Vettel paid for a mistake – blocking – at turn one and a chance to qualify for Q3.

At the stop before Q3, the sky darkened and the rain started to intensify. Nevertheless, the drivers lined up at the exit of the pits on the soft rubber – all except Leclerc. Ferrari had put it on Intermediate tyres, although Sainz had the soft dry rubber on the other F1-75s.

As everyone did their fast lap on the soft, Leclerc broke his and entered the pits to dry the soft. But on his warm-up lap, eight minutes before the end, Russell got out – stuck in the sand trap – and with it the red flag, which interrupted the process. “Ah nice”said the Monegasque on the radio before jumping into some of his rare “French”.