Piastri will start the sprint race behind Kimi Antonelli in P2 and his teammate and championship rival Lando Norris on pole position.

This comes after a difficult run of races for Piastri which has seen his championship lead erode from 34 points in the Netherlands and he now trails Norris by a single point.

Speaking to F1TV after sprint qualifying Piastri said: “The soft just was a bit different to what I expected - a couple of big moments on my first lap, which wasn't ideal and that was a bit of a shame.

Piastri has struggled for pace in relation to Norris in recent races.

In Mexico Piastri qualified in P8 and 0.588s behind polesitter Norris. He also finished the race P5 and 42 seconds behind as Norris won the race and gained the world championship lead.

But, despite qualifying two places behind his teammate, a deficit of just 0.185s is a marked improvement from Mexico.

At the Brazil sprint in 2024, Piastri led Norris for most of the race before ceding the lead to allow his teammate to maximise his points in his late title charge against Max Verstappen.

However a cyclone warning is in place for the Sao Paulo region ahead of this year's Brazil sprint.

This could influence the schedule for Saturday's sprint race and qualifying for Sunday's race.

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