Lando Norris scores points but is not “proud” of sprint success in Sao Paulo

Lando Norris admitted he didn’t deserve to win Saturday’s sprint race in Brazil, allowing him to knock another three points off Max Verstappen’s championship lead.

Pole Oscar Piastri led from the front before obeying the McLaren team’s instructions to allow Norris to win 22 of 24 laps at Interlagos.

Norris’ triumph puts him 44 points behind Verstappen, who started fourth and then moved up to third with 132 points still at his disposal.

However, Verstappen was later given a five-second time penalty for violating the use of the virtual safety car, sending him back to fourth place.

After Piastri got the better of Norris going into the first corner, attention turned to when the Australian would be moved out of the way of his teammate.

The instruction finally arrived with two laps to go, as Piastri gave Norris space before turn four to finish the action.

“I’m not proud of it,” Norris said. “Oscar deserved it (victory), but we did what we had to do, so thank you to him and the team.

“We are fighting for the constructors’ championship and we are fighting for the drivers’ championship. We want to help the team achieve both of these goals.

“From a driver’s point of view, I’m not proud of winning the race like I did today. We want to avoid this as much as possible.

“But we both signed up for it. We work as a team, someone tells us, we both have a boss and we work as hard as we can to help each other.

Piastri added: “It’s not as fun as winning, but I know the situation we’re in. We’ve been talking about this for months and this is the first time we’ve had to enforce it.

“I would have preferred to win, but it is a sprint race and I have nothing to fight for in the drivers’ championship. We knew it could happen and probably will, and I’m fine with that.

After pipping Norris to pole position by just 0.029 seconds, Piastri initially kept his McLaren teammate at bay. A dialogue then began between the pitwall and the drivers about when the move would be organised.

As Norris failed to overtake third-placed Charles Leclerc, the decision was made to swap positions on the last lap. However, McLaren’s hand was forced two laps earlier than planned as the virtual safety car – which does not allow overtaking – was deployed after Nico Hulkenberg broke down in his Haas.

McLaren also had to deal with Verstappen after he pushed Leclerc away to take third place with six laps remaining. The Dutchman attacked Piastri on the last lap, but the McLaren driver did not give up.

Verstappen was then hauled before the stewards for violating VSC rules. Verstappen, who already has to serve a five-place grid penalty ahead of Sunday’s main event after switching to a new combustion engine, was handed a post-race time penalty, putting him behind Leclerc.

It was concluded that Verstappen had gained an advantage by starting the race closer to Piastri than he should have.

Carlos Sainz finished fifth in the sprint race, one place ahead of George Russell. Lewis Hamilton started 11th and finished 11th in the second Mercedes.

Qualifying for Sunday’s 71-lap Grand Prix will take place at 15:00 local time (18:00 GMT).