Hamilton also faces an investigation for failing to slow sufficiently for the yellow flags waved when Leclerc lost control.
Norris topped all three sessions in sprint qualifying and had a comfortable advantage over Piastri throughout.
He said: “It was a little bit tougher than I would have liked. But we did the job we needed to do, which was to be fastest today.
“Qualifying is always one of the best things here. It’s difficulty, it’s bumpy, it’s tricky, always a joy, always puts a smile on your face.
“But a long weekend, another qualifying and another couple of races to go but a good start.”
Rain is forecast for Saturday morning in Sao Paulo, when the sprint race is due to start at 14:00 GMT. Qualifying for the grand prix is at 18:00.
Norris’ result is the best possible start to the weekend and gives him the opportunity to build his championship lead – eight points are awarded to the winner of the sprint, seven for second and so on down to eighth place.
Antonelli impressed in second, his best time set on his first lap, while the surprise package of qualifying was Alonso, who set the fastest time in the second session and was just 0.253secs off pole in his midfield car in the final shootout.
His team-mate Lance Stroll was seventh fastest, ahead of Leclerc, Racing Bulls’ Iscak Hadjar and Sauber’s Nico Hulkenberg.
McLaren’s Lando Norris avoided early mayhem to cruise to a dominant Mexico City Grand Prix win and retake the Formula One championship lead by a single point from teammate Oscar Piastri on Sunday.
Australia’s Piastri, who started the race seventh and 14 points clear of the Briton, finished fifth after a virtual safety car in the last two laps denied him a shot at fourth after a thrilling chase.
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Charles Leclerc was runner-up for Ferrari, a hefty 30.3 seconds adrift of Norris, while Red Bull’s reigning champion Max Verstappen took third – just 0.7 behind the Monegasque driver.
Norris, who started from pole position and led every lap, now has 357 points to Piastri’s 356, with Verstappen on 321 and four rounds remaining.
“What a race. I could just keep my eyes focused and forward and focus on what I was doing,” said Norris, who was booed by the home crowd for reasons that remained unclear.
“A pretty straightforward race for me, which is just what I was after. A good start, a good launch, a good first lap, and I could go from there.”
McLaren’s Lando Norris races in the lead, ahead of Ferrari driver Charles Leclerc, during the Mexico City Formula One Grand Prix [Yuri Cortex/AFP]
Norris turns championship frontrunner
Norris last led the drivers’ standings in April, a gap of 189 days, and had not won a race since Hungary in early August. Sunday was his sixth victory of the season, one less than Piastri, and his 10th career win.
“I felt like the whole race I was right behind someone and struggling with the dirty air. That was pretty difficult,” said Piastri.
“Today was about trying to limit the damage, but also trying to learn some things about that. If I’ve made some progress with that, I’ll be happy.”
Oliver Bearman was fourth for Haas, a best result for the Briton and also the US-owned team, and was 1.1 seconds clear of Piastri at a chequered flag waved by former heavyweight boxing champion Evander Holyfield.
“I held off Max in the first stint, I held off the Mercs in the second, and I held off the McLaren in the third one,” the rookie said.
“I spent more time looking in my rearview mirrors than in front. But that’s sometimes how it has to be.”
Kimi Antonelli was sixth for Mercedes, with teammate George Russell seventh and Lewis Hamilton eighth for Ferrari after a 10-second penalty dropped him from third and dashed his hopes of a first podium for the team he joined in January.
Esteban Ocon was ninth, making a double points finish for Haas, and Sauber’s Gabriel Bortoleto took the final point.
Haas driver Oliver Bearman recorded a career-best fourth position at the Mexico City Grand Prix [Alfredo Estrella/Pool via Reuters]
Ferrari moves back into second place
The top three all completed the race on a one-stop strategy, while Bearman, Piastri and the Mercedes drivers all pitted twice.
Ferrari moved back into second place, a point ahead of Mercedes, in a constructors’ championship already won by McLaren but with a tight scrap for the runner-up slot.
Norris made a clean start from pole when the lights went out, but was caught in a four-way tussle down the long run to turn one, with Verstappen cutting the corner and bumping over the grass.
Leclerc then cut turn two, giving the place back to Norris, who emerged from the chaos ahead, while Verstappen gained a place in fourth to the intense irritation of Russell.
“I got squeezed like crazy,” said Verstappen over the team radio as Russell, who started fourth, called in vain for the four-time world champion to hand the place back.
A scary incident saw Racing Bulls’ Liam Lawson, who came in for a new front wing on lap three, accelerate out of the pits as two marshals ran across the track in front of him.
Verstappen and third-placed Hamilton made contact on lap six as they went side by side with the Red Bull driver trying to go past at turn one, but ending up cutting the next corner.
Hamilton went off at turn four, cutting back across the grass, and was handed a penalty for leaving the track and gaining an advantage.
Bearman, meanwhile, climbed to fourth, from ninth at the start, and looked on for a podium once Hamilton took his penalty on lap 24, only to be reeled in by Verstappen.
While Norris enjoyed a calm afternoon in the sunshine, Piastri had to fight back from a low of 11th after his first stop, passing Antonelli in the pits and Russell on track.
The virtual safety car was deployed after Williams’s Carlos Sainz, last year’s winner for Ferrari, spun and stopped on track on the penultimate lap with smoke coming from it.
Norris celebrates after winning the Mexico City Grand Prix [Eloisa Sanchez/Reuters]
Norris admitted after the race in Mexico that there had been times earlier this year when he “certainly did” doubt himself.
“When the car was winning and Oscar was winning,” he said, “the last thing I could do was use the excuse that my car wasn’t good enough.
“I wasn’t getting to grips and finding a way to make it work and I’m finding a better way to make it work now, so it’s as simple as that.”
It is now Piastri facing that feeling, after two difficult weekends during which he has been a fair bit off the pace.
“For some reason, the last couple of weekends has required a very different way of driving,” said Piastri.
“What’s worked well for me in the last 19 races, I’ve needed something very different the last couple of weekends. Trying to wrap my head around why has been a bit of a struggle.”
After qualifying 0.588 seconds and seven places behind Norris in Mexico, Piastri spent Saturday night deep in the data with his engineers, trying to come up with some answers.
The race was about trying to apply them – even if he was not able to get a definitive answer as to whether they had worked, given he spent most of it stuck behind other cars on his way to a fifth place that will have felt painful, but in reality amounted to a solid recovery and exercise in damage limitation.
“Ultimately today was about trying to experiment with some of those things,” continued Piastri. “Because driving the way I’ve had to drive these last couple of weekends is not particularly natural for me.
Team boss Andrea Stella had an explanation for Piastri’s struggles.
He said that Norris excels in low-grip conditions, whereas Piastri’s driving style tends more towards high-grip levels, and he pointed out that, in only his third season, Piastri still has things to learn about adapting to different conditions.
“In the final four races, no reason to think that one may favour one driver or the other,” said Stella, pointing to Las Vegas as the most problematic potentially for the team.
“For Lando and Oscar, there’s no problem in terms of track layout coming in the next four races. If anything, we need to make sure that from a McLaren point of view, we are in condition to extract the full performance that is available in the car, like we have been able to do here in Mexico.
“The confidence in terms of the championship is increased. It’s increased because we have proven that we have a car that can win races and in some conditions can dominate races. This is the most important factor to put Lando and Oscar in condition to pursue the drivers’ championship.”
Piastri, meanwhile, cut a somewhat forlorn figure. He had a difficult weekend in the US a week ago and thought he had found the answers. But as he put it: “What’s been a bit surprising here has just been that the gap has been the same pretty much every session.
“I feel like I’ve done some decent laps through the weekend, but everything seems to be about 0.4-0.5secs off.”
Team principal Andrea Stella said Piastri was losing a little bit everywhere, and Piastri said: “I feel like I did a reasonable job and the car felt reasonable as well. So, yeah, the lack of lap time is a bit of a mystery.”
Piastri has been off Norris’ pace whether on short runs or long, low fuel or high, so it is more in hope that he said of the race: “If I can unlock the pace in the car, we can have some fun. We’ve just got to try to unlock it.”
This is now Piastri’s fifth difficult weekend in a row, his form mysteriously evaporating since he won in the Netherlands at the end of August.
He did not talk directly about what this means for the championship, but there was no hiding the meaning behind one of his comments: “There’s a lot of things I could worry about, but ultimately being that far off when you feel like you’ve done a reasonable job is a difficult place to be. And so that’s my biggest concern at the moment.”
Stella said that the conditions in Mexico, like those in Austin, are ones in which Norris thrives and Piastri is less comfortable – low grip, hot tyres.
And he said that “every evidence, every piece of data, every indirect measurement of information we have, tells us that there is no problem with the car”.
He added that it was “good” for McLaren to be able “to confirm that we can have the fastest car”, adding that their “focus is to stop the momentum of Verstappen”.
Norris started alongside Verstappen on the front row, hoping McLaren’s usually strong race performance would allow him to challenge the Red Bull driver, who had won two of the past three races and beaten the McLarens in all of them.
But Norris’ hopes of the win evaporated quickly as Leclerc used the extra grip of the soft tyres – he was the only driver in the top 10 to pick them for the start, with everyone else on mediums – to catapult into second place at the first corner.
As Verstappen built his lead, through an early virtual safety car period caused by a collision between Williams’ Carlos Sainz and Mercedes’ Kimi Antonelli, Norris tried in vain to pass Leclerc, with Hamilton in close attendance.
Several times Norris challenged Leclerc on the outside at Turn 12, at the end of the long back straight, but he was never close enough to really try for a pass.
As Verstappen built his lead, Leclerc held on until just before he stopped for fresh tyres on lap 22, fitting the medium compound.
Verstappen stopped a couple of laps later, never losing the lead and enjoying an untroubled win, his third in four races and fifth of the season, matching Norris’ tally.
Norris stayed out for a further 10 laps, dropping behind the Ferrari again when he stopped to fit the soft tyres.
The Briton emerged 2.4 seconds behind Leclerc and within four laps was on the Ferrari’s tail.
But again he could not pass and soon he was on the radio saying his tyres we’re gone.
Norris was advised by his race engineer Will Joseph to back off for a few laps to cool his tyres and try again.
Norris did so, and closed in with five laps to go. He challenged into Turn One, briefly getting past, only for Leclerc to cut back and reclaim the place.
But half a lap later, Norris went for the position again into Turn 12, dummying Leclerc and this time making the move stick.
By this stage, Hamilton had dropped back and took a lonely fourth place.
Red Bull’s Max Verstappen beat McLaren’s Lando Norris to pole position at the United States Grand Prix with championship leader Oscar Piastri down in sixth.
After the McLaren drivers crashed out of the sprint earlier on Saturday, neither was able to challenge Verstappen even though the world champion failed to complete a final run in qualifying.
Verstappen was sent out too late to get around in time to start a last lap before the chequered flag but still beat Norris by 0.291 seconds.
It was an imperious performance that underlined why McLaren are concerned about his threat in the drivers’ championship.
Norris saved his best for last in a difficult session to pip Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc to second on the grid by just 0.006secs.
But Piastri, who has looked out of sorts all weekend, was not quick and he ended up 0.574secs off the pace, and behind Mercedes’ George Russell and the second Ferrari of Lewis Hamilton.
The crash was a gift for Verstappen, who McLaren have always insisted remained a threat in the championship despite his significant deficit, especially as Red Bull have returned to form in recent races.
The crash brought out the safety car for five laps and after the restart Verstappen was tracked by Russell, who made a bold move into Turn 12 on lap seven, a late dive that ended up with both going off the track.
Verstappen retained the position and soon began to edge away and took control of the race.
Sainz was no threat to Russell, but he had to watch his mirrors for Hamilton.
The seven-time champion passed team-mate Charles Leclerc on lap eight down the back straight after the Monegasque lost control of his car through the high-speed Esses earlier in the lap.
Leclerc had a snap through the Esses, cut one of the corners, and that allowed Hamilton to close up. He then passed down the straight as Leclerc edged him right to the edge of the track on the inside.
Leclerc tried to fight back through the series of slower corners through the stadium section but Hamilton held on.
Leclerc took fifth place, with Williams’ Alex Albon sixth and Red Bull’s Yuki Tsunoda seventh.
Mercedes’ Kimi Antonelli took the final point after a 10-second penalty for Haas driver Oliver Bearman, who was adjudged to have gained an advantage by leaving the track after the Italian tried a passing move into Turn 12 late in the race.
Bearman could not believe the penalty when told about it by his team during the race, obviously feeling Antonelli had forced him off track with his late move.
The race ended under another safety car after Aston Martin’s Lance Stroll T-boned Esteban Ocon’s Haas into the first corner, leaving his team with a massive repair job on both cars in the gap before grand prix qualifying at 22:00 BST.
Piastri had looked to be struggling compared with Norris since the start of practice and was a good chunk off the Briton in all three qualifying sessions.
Norris said: “Disappointed not to be on pole but not a surprise for us to be just a bit slower than the Red Bull lately.
“A little couple of bits here and there I could have improved on and caught a few bumps a little bit wrong, that’s the difficulty of this track. Otherwise, all happy.”
Piastri said: “A pretty scruffy lap. Just didn’t really get it together. In some ways, I feel a bit fortunate to be third. The pace in the car is good. It’s nothing major, just been a bit of a messy lap and hopefully I can tidy it up tomorrow.”
The sprint offers eight points for the winner down to one for eighth place.
The stand-out performance in qualifying came from Hulkenberg, the first time he has qualified in the top 10 all year, and the best Sauber performance of the season.
Their previous top grid position was seventh for team-mate Gabriel Bortoleto in Hungary at the start of August.
“Satisfied, happy, as you might imagine,” the German said. “P1 looked too good to be true. We weren’t sure if it was the real deal but we were able to continue that trend. Hopefully we can hang on to it this weekend.
“The pace was just there. The car seemed to be fast and in a good window, hit the sweet spot, I think that’s all.”
McLaren’s Lando Norris set the pace in practice at the United States Grand Prix, split from team-mate and title rival Oscar Piastri by Sauber’s Nico Hulkenberg.
Norris, trailing the Australian by 22 points with six races to go, headed Piastri by 0.279 seconds at the start of a sprint weekend at the Circuit of the Americas.
Aston Martin’s Fernando Alonso was fourth fastest, ahead of Red Bull’s Max Verstappen and Williams’ Alex Albon.
This was the only session before sprint qualifying at 22:30 BST.
Mercedes’ George Russell was seventh fastest, the first driver to set his fastest time on the medium tyres, ahead of Ferrari’s Lewis Hamilton, Racing Bulls’ Isack Hadjar and Haas’ Oliver Bearman.
Red Bull’s Max Verstappen, who is 63 points behind Piastri in the championship but has won two of the past three races and finished second in the other, was asked in a news conference on Thursday in Austin whether he believed McLaren were favouring Norris.
He replied: “Absolutely.”
He laughed, and then said: “Yep.”
Leaving the news conference, he said off-microphone: “Well, there’s a headline.”
BBC Sport sought clarification from Verstappen as to whether he had been joking, and he said through a PR person that he had been.
In answer to the same favouritism question, Verstappen added: “I honestly don’t know. I don’t care also. It has nothing to do with me. They do whatever they think is right and they are doing a very good job of it being so quick.
“For me, the most important thing is we maximise our potential and as long as we do that, it is in our control.”
Piastri said: “I’m very happy that there’s no favouritism or bias.”
McLaren have won the constructors’ championship but Oscar Piastri has sounded fed up since qualifying at Monza, and with the ‘papaya rules’. Is it time the drivers’ title actually becomes a more gloves-off, not-so-friendly fight? – Nick
The conversations at McLaren following the Singapore Grand Prix are certainly going to be long and involved, and may well be tense.
Oscar Piastri made it clear during the race that he was not happy with the fact Lando Norris had collided with him in his overtaking move at Turn Three, and clearly questioned whether it complied with the team’s internal code of conduct governing on-track battles.
As Piastri put it: “That wasn’t very team-like, but sure. Are we cool with Lando just barging me out of the way?”
When he was told the team would take no action in the race, but would review it afterwards, Piastri said that was “not fair”.
This follows the Italian Grand Prix, when Piastri was ordered to give second place back to Norris, after the Briton lost it because of a slow pit stop.
And Hungary, where Norris was allowed to switch to a one-stop strategy and ended up beating his team-mate despite being three places behind him after a difficult first lap.
And Canada, where Norris drove into the back of Piastri but immediately accepted blame.
In this situation, it’s easy to see why Piastri could feel hard done by, although he insisted after the race he was not concerned Norris was getting preferential treatment.
It remains to be seen, of course, what Piastri says about Singapore when he gets to the next race in Austin, Texas.
So far, both McLaren drivers have bought into the team’s philosophy.
Fundamentally, that is that the team should be fair and equitable and the drivers are allowed to race, on the proviso they don’t compromise the team’s interests. Essentially, that means don’t crash into each other.
After Singapore, both Norris and team principal Andrea Stella said nothing would change on that front now the constructors’ championship is sewn up.
The team still want to win the drivers’ championship, and Max Verstappen is still a threat, albeit a distant one, so Piastri and Norris can’t throw caution to the wind.
They also want to beat each other, and the outcome of any contact is always uncertain in F1.
So, while it seems likely that the tension will increase between Piastri and Norris as the championship fight comes to a head, any decision to start throwing punches on track, so to speak, would come with risk.
MAX VERSTAPPEN blasted Formula One title rival Lando Norris for getting in his way after failing to land a maiden pole position at the Singapore Grand Prix.
George Russell denied old rival Verstappen the front row seat with a lightning-quick lap of 1:29.158 – a new record at the Marina Bay Street Circuit.
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Max Verstappen blasted Lando Norris for getting in his way during Singapore GP qualifyingCredit: X / SkySportsF1
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Lando Norris bit back at the hot-tempered commentCredit: Getty
Verstappen, 28, is eyeing a first-ever win in Sunday’s race to complete the career set of winning at every F1 track on the 2025 calendar.
The raging Red Bull driver replied: “Yeah, that’s what happens when there’s a car two seconds in front of you cruising in front.
“So that’s noted, will be remembered as well.”
When pressed on the identity of the culprit, Verstappen replied: “Not Oscar [Piastri]. So yeah, that was a bit of a shame. Otherwise, I think it could have been close for a pole.
“It’s very exciting here in qualifying. A little bit disappointed not to be first but for us this weekend the car has been really good.
Briton Russell was delighted with his top spot, a first-ever pole for him in Singapore after a “challenging day” on Friday following a crash in FP2.
He said: “It’s good to come back and get a good result today.
“There’s a long sweaty race tomorrow but I knew there was potential in the car because Kimi [Antonelli] was doing an amazing job all weekend and I gained quite a lot from seeing what he was capable of doing.”
George Russell forced to abandon Singapore GP qualifying after smashing into barriers and mangling Mercedes
On the prospect of keeping four-time world champion Verstappen behind him going into Turn 1, Russell added: “Yeah, I mean Singapore’s not always been the kindest to me in the past.
“That’s been through my own doing the majority of the time. I’m not going to get carried away with this pole position. But it’s the best place to start.
“There’s a good pole side advantage here so I like to think I can hold the lead into Turn 1, but obviously this guy on my left is pretty good at race starts and sending it down the inside.”
Such a claim seemed off-beat considering Verstappen is 69 points behind McLaren championship leader Oscar Piastri, who scored third in Saturday’s qualifying.
Yet wins in Italy and Azerbaijan and a strong result in qualifying is threatening to split the drivers’ title race wide open despite the comparative dominance of McLaren for most of the season.
Piastri said: “I obviously would have wanted more but I don’t think we had four-tenths in it to go and get pole.”
Team-mate Norris, who will start P5 in the race, addressed Verstappen’s claim after the session.
He said: “Red Bull always complains. There was no problem with Max driving behind me. Yes, he was riding behind me. But there was such a huge distance, so no problem.”
There was early hope for Lewis Hamilton and Ferrari in qualifying as he topped the first session, but he ultimately ended up in P6 with team-mate Charles Leclerc in P7.
DES MOINES — Officials put the leader of Iowa’s largest school district on administrative leave Saturday, a day after federal immigration agents arrested him because they said he was in the country illegally.
The Des Moines school board voted unanimously to place Supt. Ian Roberts on paid leave. The board said during a three-minute meeting that Roberts was not available to carry out his duties for the 30,000-student district and that officials would reassess his status after getting more information.
After the meeting, school board President Jackie Norris read a statement saying that word of Roberts’ arrest Friday made for a “jarring day,” but noting that board members still didn’t have all the facts.
U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement said agents detained Roberts because he was in the country illegally, didn’t have authorization to work and was subject to a final removal order issued in 2024. ICE agents stopped Roberts while he was driving a school-issued vehicle, and the agency said he then fled into a wooded area before being apprehended with help from Iowa State Patrol officers.
He was held in the Woodbury County Jail in Sioux City, in northwest Iowa, about 150 miles from Des Moines.
“I want to be clear, no one here was aware of any citizenship or immigration issues that Dr. Roberts may have been facing,” Norris said. “The accusations ICE had made against Dr. Roberts are very serious, and we are taking them very seriously.”
Norris said Roberts has retained a Des Moines law firm to represent him. Lawyer Alfredo Parrish confirmed his firm was representing Roberts, but declined to comment on his case.
Norris also repeated that the district had done a background check on Roberts before he was hired that didn’t indicate any problems and that he signed a form affirming he was a U.S. citizen. A company that aided in the search for a superintendent in 2023 also hired another firm to conduct “comprehensive criminal, credit and background checks” on Roberts that didn’t indicate any citizenship problems, Norris said.
Also Saturday, the Iowa Department of Education released a statement saying Roberts stated he was a U.S. citizen when he applied for an administrator license. The department said the Iowa Board of Educational Examiners conducted a criminal history check with state and federal authorities before issuing a license.
The department said it is reviewing the Des Moines district’s hiring procedures for ensuring people are authorized to work in the U.S.
Roberts had previously said he was born to immigrant parents from Guyana and spent much of his childhood in Brooklyn, N.Y. He competed in the 2000 Olympics in track and field for Guyana.
ICE said he entered the U.S. on a student visa in 1999.
A former senior Guyanese police official on Saturday remembered Roberts as a middle-distance runner who could have risen through the ranks of the South American country’s police force had he not emigrated to the U.S. decades ago. Retired Assistant Guyana Police Force Commissioner Paul Slowe said Roberts entered the police force after graduating from the country’s standard military officers’ course.
“He served for a few years and then left. He was not dismissed or dishonorably discharged at all; he just moved on,” Slowe told the Associated Press. “He was a good, promising and disciplined man.”
McFetridge writes for the Associated Press. AP writer Bert Wilkinson in Georgetown, Guyana, contributed to this report.
McLaren have been determined to keep the fight between their two drivers as fair as possible but their approach was always likely to lead to controversy at some point.
That was certainly the case at Monza, as they interfered after the sort of twist of fate that often turns driver’s races.
Norris unquestionably deserved the second place on the balance of the race, but his pit stop problem left the team with an agonising quandary.
It is normal practice to pit the lead driver first in such a scenario but McLaren decided they wanted to pit Piastri first, saying they made the decision to ensure he was clear of Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc, who had pitted earlier on a conventional strategy.
Norris questioned it when told of the decision, saying he was fine “as long as there was no undercut”, which would be him being passed by Piastri going faster on his out lap. He was assured there would be no such thing.
Piastri’s stop was faultless at 1.9 seconds but Norris’s front right wheel gun had a problem and his stop was 5.9, so Piastri was in the lead when Norris re-emerged on to the track.
Piastri was immediately told to let Norris back past. His engineer Tom Stallard said: “Oscar, this is a bit like Hungary last year. We pitted in this order for team reasons. Please let Lando past and then you are free to race.”
Piastri replied: “I mean, we said a slow pit stop was part of racing, so I don’t really get what’s changed here. But if you really want me to do it, then I’ll do it.”
After the race, Norris said: “Every now and again we make mistakes as a team. Today was one of them.”
The point of view of both drivers is understandable, and it will be interesting to see how McLaren manage this in the increasing tension of a title fight.
Speaking to Sky Sports later, Piastri was accepting of the decision, saying: “The decision to swap back was fair. Lando was ahead of me the whole race. I don’t have any issues with that.”
Red Bull’s Max Verstappen snatched pole position for the Italian Grand Prix from Lando Norris with the fastest lap in Formula 1 history.
The Dutchman’s time of one minute 18.792 seconds beat the lap set by Lewis Hamilton at Monza in 2020 for Mercedes by 0.095secs – at an average speed of 164.484mph.
Norris had just leapt to the top of the times after a difficult first run left him seventh, but Verstappen pipped him by 0.077 seconds for his first pole since the British Grand Prix in July.
McLaren’s Oscar Piastri, leading Norris by 34 points in their championship battle, was third fastest, ahead of the Ferraris of Charles Leclerc and Lewis Hamilton.
But the seven-time champion has a five-place penalty and will start the grand prix at Monza 10th.
That promotes Mercedes’ George Russell to fifth, ahead of team-mate Andrea Kimi Antonelli, Sauber’s Gabriel Bortoleto, Aston Martin’s Fernando Alonso and Red Bull’s Yuki Tsunoda.
Verstappen’s pole time seemed to surprise even the Dutchman himself, after he struggled for pace through the practice sessions.
Mercedes’ George Russell was fourth fastest, ahead of Verstappen’s Red Bull and the Ferrari of Lewis Hamilton, who was 0.848secs off the pace.
The seven-time champion had two spins during the day, both times without hitting anything.
The first was in the first session, when he spun entering Hugenholtz, the second when he ran a little wide out of the tricky right-hander at Turn Nine and put his rear wheel on to the grass.
Nevertheless, Hamilton ended the day 0.096secs and two places ahead of team-mate Charles Leclerc, an encouraging start to the final part of the season after a difficult end to the first for the Briton.
Hamilton said: “Not been the worst of days. We were making progress. We were quite far off in P1, a lot further than normal. We progressed but still quite a chunk off so we have some work to do overnight.
“Pace-wise we are where we are. I don’t know how we’re going to find 0.8secs but we will try our best.”
He said of his spins: “First one was just pushing too much. Also ride quality is not where we’d want it, so the car is quite unpredictable. The second one I touched the grass and had a snap.”
Leclerc described it as “a very, very, very, very difficult Friday, probably the worst of the season” and said they were losing “90% of the time” in two corners. He did not name them, but it was the tricky two right-handers of Turns Eight and Nine.
Leclerc said it would take a “miracle” to turn the situation around.
Red Bull’s Yuki Tsunoda was seventh and Alex Albon was another to crash in the second session in the Williams, going straight on at the first corner, Tarzan, and breaking his front wing against the barriers.
Verstappen himself had an off after the end of the first session, misjudging his braking into the Tarzan hairpin that starts the lap after doing a practice start.
Mercedes driver Kimi Antonelli crashed in the first session, running off track at Turn Nine and ended the second session 12th.
ATLANTA — Detroit safety Morice Norris was attended to for about 20 minutes and taken off the field in an ambulance during the Lions’ preseason game Friday night against Atlanta, with the game ending with 6:31 to go after the players let the clock run.
Norris was hurt with 14:50 to go trying to tackle Nathan Carter.
“We’re just praying for Mo and ask that everybody prays for him,” said Lions coach Dan Campbell, who said he had “positive information” from hospital.
“He’s breathing. He’s talking. He has some movement,” Campbell added.
When play resumed, Falcons quarterback Emory Jones took a snap and then held the ball as players from both teams stood at the line of scrimmage and the clock continued to run. Finally, with 6:31 left, an official announced the game had been suspended “per New York.”
The Lions led 17-10 when played was stopped.
Campbell and Falcons coach Raheem Morris made the decision to not finish the game.
“Raheem Morris is a class act,” Campbell said. “He’s the ultimate class act. We agreed it just didn’t feel right to finish that game.”
Lions quarterback Kyle Allen said the decision to not finish the game was easy to make.
“I don’t think anyone on that sideline wanted to play,” Allen said. “We weren’t part of that decision but you could look in anyone’s eyes and see that.”
United Kingdom’s Lando Norris holds off McLaren teammate Oscar Piastri of Australia to win Hungarian Grand Prix.
Lando Norris has held off McLaren teammate Oscar Piastri to win the Hungarian Grand Prix on a one-stop strategy and slash the Australian’s Formula One lead to nine points going into the August break.
Norris completed 39 of the 70 laps on Sunday at the Hungaroring on a single set of hard tyres while Piastri stopped twice and closed a 12-second gap to just 0.6 at the finish with a nail-biting chase to the chequered flag and a near-collision.
George Russell took a distant third, 20 seconds down the road, for Mercedes and his fifth podium of the season.
“I’m dead. I’m dead. It was tough,” gasped Norris, who started in third place – with Piastri second – and then went down to fifth after being squeezed at the start.
“We weren’t really planning on the one stop, but after the first lap, it was kind of our only option to get back into things.
“I didn’t think it would get us the win. I thought it would get us maybe into second.”
Race winner Lando Norris of Great Britain driving the #4 McLaren MCL39 Mercedes takes the chequered flag during the Grand Prix in Hungary [Clive Rose/Getty Images]
The win was Norris’s fifth of the season and third in the past four races to Piastri’s six. It was also McLaren’s seventh one-two in 14 races.
Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc was a frustrated fourth after starting on pole position but losing out with a two-stop strategy and a five-second penalty for erratic driving as Russell challenged.
Fernando Alonso finished fifth for Aston Martin ahead of Sauber’s sixth-placed Brazilian rookie Gabriel Bortoleto.
Lance Stroll was seventh for Aston Martin ahead of Racing Bulls’ Liam Lawson with Red Bull’s reigning champion, Max Verstappen, and Mercedes rookie Kimi Antonelli completing the top 10 scoring positions.
Seven-time world champion Lewis Hamilton, an eight-time winner in Hungary, started in 12th place for Ferrari and finished there.
The Briton was lapped by the leaders six laps from the chequered flag.
Charles Leclerc of Ferrari leads at the start of the Hungarian Grand Prix [Beata Zawrzel/NurPhoto via Getty Images]
Piastri had demonstrated how difficult it is for the driver on pole to lead by the end of the first lap at Spa by losing the sprint race win to Red Bull’s Max Verstappen.
The Dutchman slipstreamed past Piastri up the hill to Les Combes, and then held the McLaren at bay for 15 laps, while Norris followed closely in third.
In the grand prix, it was Norris in front, with Piastri in second and Piastri had been thinking about the opportunity this presented him since losing out on pole the day before.
McLaren team boss Andrea Stella said: “This weekend, Oscar, if anything, the only inaccuracy was in qualifying, where his laps weren’t perfect.
“At the same time, we have to say that after the sprint qualifying, he said, ‘Yeah, I’m in pole position, but maybe this is not the right place to be in pole position.’
“And as a joke, after the qualifying yesterday, he said, ‘That was not my best lap in Q3, but perhaps this is the best place not to have the best lap in Q3.'”
Sure enough, Piastri took the lead on lap one of the grand prix, just as Verstappen had the day before.
“I had a good run out of Turn One,” he said, “and then tried to be as brave as I could through Eau Rouge and was able to stay pretty close. After that, the slipstream did the rest for me.
“When I watched the onboard back, it didn’t look quite as scary as it felt in the car. I knew that I had to be very committed to pull that off.”
But Norris could have done a better job. For a start, he failed to build himself a gap over the finish line by arguably going too early at the restart. Then he made a mistake at La Source, which allowed Piastri to be right on his tail approaching Eau Rouge.
“I didn’t have the best Turn One,” Norris said. “So it’s hard to know how much that played a part. At the same time, Oscar came past me pretty easily. So even if I had a better Turn One, his run and the slipstream probably still would have got me.”
Stella said: “It would have always been very difficult for Lando to keep the position starting first at the safety car restart. At the same time, I think Lando didn’t help himself by not having a great gap on the finish line.”
