HIGHLIGHTS: Enjoy the best action from Sao Paulo qualifying as Verstappen takes pole before storm hits

Friday afternoon qualifying for the Sao Paulo Grand Prix – with the Sprint Shootout and Sprint coming on Saturday, ahead of the main race on Sunday – saw Max Verstappen triumph over Charles Leclerc, in a session that ended with heavy rain curtailing the on-track action.

Behind the front pair, Aston Martin enjoyed their strongest ever qualifying in F1, with Lance Stroll and Fernando Alonso set to line up P3 and P4 for Sunday’s Grand Prix after perfectly judging their timing in Q3 to bang their laps in before an ugly cloud disgorged its contents on the Interlagos track.

AS IT HAPPENED: Follow all the action from qualifying for the Sao Paulo Grand Prix

Meanwhile, one of the stars of qualifying in Mexico six days ago, Daniel Ricciardo, found himself out at the first time of asking, exiting Q1 along with AlphaTauri team mate Yuki Tsunoda, the Alfa Romeo pair of Valtteri Bottas and Zhou Guanyu, and the Williams of Logan Sargeant.

Hit play in the video up top to watch the best action from qualifying for the Sao Paulo Grand Prix.