Formula 1 Brazilian Grand Prix: George Russell wins sprint race to take pole position for Sunday's race
ByTNT Sports
Updated 12/11/2022 at 21:32 GMT
George Russell will start on pole for the Brazlian Grand Prix after taking victory in the Sprint race in Sao Paulo. The Mercedes driver was able to overtake champion Max Verstappen and never looked back as he finished ahead of Ferrari's Carlos Sainz. Lewis Hamilton, Russell's Mercedes team-mate, took third.
George Russell
Image credit: Getty Images
George Russell won the Sao Paulo Grand Prix Sprint race on Saturday afternoon.
Kevin Magnussen led at the front of the grid after a surprise success in Friday evening’s qualifying session, which was curtailed by rain and a red flag brought out by Mercedes’ Russell.
World champion Max Verstappen took the lead after just three laps, and for a while it looked as if he would cruise to another victory.
However Russell, on softs, started to press the Red Bull driver midway through the race and after several attempts with DRS, he added a slipstream advantage to an effort to go past, and he swept into the lead.
Verstappen was just one of two drivers employing medium tyres and he then lost second place to Carlos Sainz of Ferrari, and then third to Russell’s teammate, Lewis Hamilton.
The win for Russell means that he will start on pole for Sunday’s main event in Brazil, but his eight points helps his effort to finish as high up as possible in the drivers’ championship, despite the title itself already having been decided.
Sainz will drop down five places as a result of a new internal combustion engine. While for now Hamilton looks set to make it a Mercedes lockout on the front row, the seven-time world champion is under investigation for a potential transgression at the start.
Magnussen finished the race in eighth, winning the last point on offer, with Verstappen taking fourth, stablemate Sergio Perez fifth, and Charles Leclerc in sixth.
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