That’s all from me. Tomorrow afternoon, Daniel Harris will be with you for the race proper, however long it lasts, with the lights due to go out at 5pm GMT. Giles Richards has filed his report:

Lando Norris took pole position for McLaren at the São Paulo Grand Prix at Interlagos, with George Russell setting the second fastest time. Norris put in a strong lap in very tricky wet conditions during a qualifying session that took two and a half hours to complete because of heavy rain. Russell, though, has a grid penalty, promoting the new world champion, Kimi Antonelli, to second and the Racing Bulls’ driver Liam Lawson to third and Audi’s Nico Hülkenberg to fourth.

Max Verstappen and Lewis Hamilton were also amongst a raft of drivers taking a grid penalty for taking a new engine and the Dutchman opted to not set a time after Q1, to save his tyres for the race and will start from 21st.

Hamilton also had to take a full range of engine components, having had a new internal combustion engine for final practice which then suffered a problem and he will start from 20th place. His Ferrari teammate Charles Leclerc finished in fourth but has a ten-place penalty for taking a new ICE and will start from 13th.

Well, that was fun. At times it did not look as if we would get Q1 done, never mind Q3.

The weather is on his mind. “We’ll try to be ready for anything … And thank you for all the fans for staying out with us.”

“I struggled a little bit in the inters, I made a big mistake and almost went off at turn five. Still was enough for P3.”

Now Antonelli, greeted as the new world champion. Did it feel any different? “It was very tricky … I didn’t know what to expect, I have never driven here in the wet.”

His hopes, given the penalty, depend on the weather. “I feel more confident in the wet than the dry.”

Now Russell, asked about his frustration: “Obviously congrats to Lando, but that was definitely the pole lap. A misjudgment on our side, we need to understand what happened … The rain was coming, we should have just finished the lap.”

He continues: “I’m very happy … It was about getting two laps in and not making any mistakes, and that’s what we did.”

Norris speaks to Naomi Schiff: “It’s been a long day … It’s been a great qualifying, to be on pole again here, two years in a row.”

Everyone back in the pits. The clock ticking, barely four minutes left.

Russell furious at being told to back off, because Albon was in the way, but then the rain came. Toto Wolff trying to console him.

Norris, Russell, Antonelli, Leclerc, Lawson, Hulkenberg, Hadjar, Bearman, Alonso, Albon.

Ted Kravitz says the heavy rain is here. That could be that.

Norris takes it as of right in 1:27.470.

Russell has that penalty … so Norris could inherit pole.

It all depends on the rain. Russell quickest in 1:27.674, from Norris, Lawson, Antonelli.

Nope. Liam Lawson goes much faster and so does Lando Norris.

Fernando Alonso out in front. He must have a shot at pole.

“When it hits, it will be very intense,” Antonelli is told.

Q3 is go. But for how long?

Antonelli told we might get only one lap before the heavy rain returns. Is everyone in the queue on the wrong tyres?

Karun Chandhok says Piastri stayed out maybe two laps too long.

A pit lane queue is forming. We might – might – get away with it.

Bernie Collins says the rain looks to be five minutes away. Camara damaged a barrier, it will take time to repair, and Q3 could be in doubt.

“Weather update: very dark now,” says George Russell.

Q3 will be delayed. Q2 will not restart. Albon and Alonso among those through, the latter Aston Martin’s first of the season.

Red flag. Camara in the wall.

Like Q1, it’s a tale of endless improvement.

Bearman goes fastest, then Lawson in 1:27.478.

Now everyone. Drop zone is Camara, Lindblad, Sainz, Bearman, Albon and non-runner Verstappen.

Intermediates. Alonso, Lawson and others.

No, he was able to stop behind the barriers.

Red flag coming? Lindblad told to “stop the car in a safe place”.

Antonelli at +0.359.

Hamilton second fastest for a moment, but Russell lands a 1:29.285.

Leclerc gets a 1:29.795. Keen to get as far away as possible from Hamilton.

Russell gets a 1:30, then Antonelli faster still, then Norris.

Russell says he needs to stay on full wets, despite some areas looking good for intermediates.

Bernie Collins says the weather will get better and better. So more of the same, perhaps.

Q2 is go – and without Max Verstappen. He has a time to avoid being 22nd and needs to preserve his tyres.

Karun Chandhok replays Camara’s impact and praises the Haas car for being strong enough that with a patch-up he made Q2.

Bortoleto slid across the grass, recovered, but the rear wing could not be fixed.

Well that was worth waiting for. Totally bizarre racing, lap after lap after lap of new people going fastest.

Norris fastest, and Rafa Camara gets 13th place! Q2 on debut!

Yellow flag … Russell, Verstappen and Hamilton go ahead of Hulkenberg.

“It could be wild,” says Brundle. Whoever runs last has a chance. Cross that line in time to start a final lap …

Hulkenberg fastest again! Drop zone is now Perez, Sainz, Stroll, Bottas, Colapinto, Bortoleto.

Russell’s 1:32.441 is followed by Norris, +0.356, then Antonelli, +0.361.

Verstappen pulls out a 1:33.074, ahead of Bearman, Lawson, Lindblad. But then Russell betters the Red Bull, as do Norris and Antonelli.

And Antonelli gets himself out of trouble, up to fourth.

Antonelli doesn’t have a proper time. Drop zone is Stroll, Colapinto, Bearman, Bortoleto and Camara.

George Russell 1st, now Norris second. The lead is changing hands so much as conditions improve.

Hulkenberg now fastest in 1:35.477. Drivers adapting. Hamilton now P1 with 1:34.373.

Bortoleto in the grass but escapes. Phew.

“You are living on your wits,” avers Brundle.

This is chaos. Verstappen 1:36.724, Leclerc +0.025, then Alonso!

Verstappen in a 1:37.932. Leclerc may have lost a time.

1:40.512 from Hulkenberg.

Yellow flag … Rafa Camara, the new man in Haas. But he got going again.

Bottas is the first man on a timed lap. “You might need a calendar rather than a stopwatch,” says Brundle.

Mercedes still sitting in the garage.

Brundle observes that everyone is leaving a gap to the car in front. You want some visbility.

But cars are going out.

“It’s pretty heavy,” says Piastri.

But Brundle is seeing the crowd back in their ponchos … some teams are staying in their garages. “Rain is intensifying again,” says Hulkenberg.

Restart at 7.26pm GMT.

More rain coming, though, so everyone needs a lap asap.

David Croft says restart is coming in three and a half minutes.

Bernd Mayländer says this is our opening. But Ted Kravitz is worried we won’t get out in time.

Drivers getting back in the car, just in case Bernd Mayländer says yes.

Ferrari’s Fred Vasseur: “Now the issue is that we have rain in 15 minutes … We just have to be ready each time the safety car goes out … We all want to go on track, but race control is right, we have to put safety first.”

Bernd Mayländer getting cheers and screams as he goes round in the safety car.

Ollie Bearman speaks: “The wettest conditions I have experienced in a race car, and in a car full stop to be honest, and that’s a lot for someone growing up in the UK.”

This is now the longest ever Q1, overtaking Hungary in 2016, which lasted 1hr 10min.

Rain easing and the radar looks better.

A few video nasties now, with shots from the cars that did go out for the ill-fated 2mins 23sec.

Bernd Mayländer speaks on camera and the safety car driver says it’s just not safe. I am beating myself over the head for not realising that Interlagos, like Interlaken in Switzerland, means between the lakes.

Leo Addor writes: “There’s an expression in Portuguese called enxugar gelo. It means drying up ice, with a towel. It’s used referring to doing anything futile, of course. The more you dry up the ice cube with the towel, the more it melts and so on. It is literally what those race marshals are being paid to do ...”

Bernie Collins reckons the next half an hour to 40 minutes could be drier. Get Q1 done and set a grid.

Water flowing on the Rio José Carlos Pace.

The Sky team have dug into the archive and looked back at the late Alan Jones, the 1980 champion who died this week.

Bernd Mayländer in the safety car reports conditions are now worse.

I see a little silhouetto of a man. Scaramouche, Scaramouche, will you do the Fandango? Thunderbolt and lightning, very, very frightening.

Now I know how the over-by-over team feel when it rains.

Bernd Mayländer back on track in the safety car. But “it’s grim out there” says Croft. “It’s murky, it’s miserable.”

David Croft and Martin Brundle increasingly sceptical that we will actually get qualifying today. Apparently a rule change for this season means that if qualifying cannot take place in time for the race, then it would start in championship order.

Oops. Lightning.

“I think it’s fantastic to have so young champion … I knew Kimi from five, six years old.” He raves over the champion’s win from 19th at Monza.

Drivers stepping out of their cars. Craig Slater now with Emerson Fittipaldi, the earliest F1 champion I can remember watching drive. He was once the youngest champion.

Sisyphus’s team of marshals sweeping water off the track.

“We just see lots of standing water,” comes over the radio.

Ted Kravitz fears that the next band of rain is in. Things are getting worse, not better.

The safety car is going round, and it doesn’t look clever.

Brundle wondering how it will go if sunset approaches. We have a couple of hours to go but a crash might make life difficult. In 2024, qualifying had to be moved to the Sunday morning.

Ger Nugent asks: “How does that work, 3 drivers at the back of the grid – a coin toss?” Based on what has happened previously, in effect it is a mini-qualifying battle between them. Whoever does worst will be at the back, etc.

Rain is continuing. Bernie Collins trying to regain her status as the oracle, predicting it will get heavier soon too. We could be here a while.

Here’s Felipe Massa. After what happened to him at Interlagos in 2008, it’s a surprise he can raise a smile. Of course the battle over that season’s championship goes on; not because of Hamilton’s last-gasp recovery but the Crashgate events in Singapore.

And here are the constructors’:

1 Mercedes 🇩🇪 630pts
2 Ferrari 🇮🇹 504
3 Red Bull 🇦🇹 382
4 McLaren 🇬🇧 365
5 Racing Bulls 🇮🇹 108
6 Alpine 🇫🇷 69
7 Haas 🇺🇸 31
8 Audi 🇩🇪 27
9 Williams 🇬🇧 12
10 Aston Martin 🇬🇧 7
11 Cadillac 🇺🇸 0

While we wait, here are the driver standings:

1 Kimi Antonelli 🇮🇹 Mercedes 380pts
2 Max Verstappen 🇳🇱 Red Bull 261
3 Lewis Hamilton 🇬🇧 Ferrari 259
4 George Russell 🇬🇧 Mercedes 250
5 Charles Leclerc 🇲🇨 Ferrari 245
6 Lando Norris 🇬🇧 McLaren 221
7 Oscar Piastri 🇦🇺 McLaren 144
8 Isack Hadjar 🇫🇷 Red Bull 107
9 Liam Lawson 🇳🇿 Racing Bulls 83
10 Pierre Gasly 🇫🇷 Alpine 42
11 Arvid Lindblad 🇬🇧 Racing Bulls 38
12 Franco Colapinto 🇦🇷 Alpine 27
13 Oliver Bearman 🇬🇧 Haas 23
14 Nico Hülkenberg 🇩🇪 Audi 13
15 Gabriel Bortoleto 🇧🇷 Audi 10
16 Esteban Ocon 🇫🇷 Haas 7
17 Fernando Alonso 🇪🇸 Aston Martin 7
18 Carlos Sainz 🇪🇸 Williams 7
19 Alexander Albon 🇹🇭 Williams 5
20 Yuki Tsunoda 🇯🇵 Racing Bulls 1
21 Ryo Hirakawa 🇯🇵 Haas 1

Yet to score:
Lance Stroll 🇨🇦 Aston Martin
Valtteri Bottas 🇫🇮 Cadillac
Sergio Pérez 🇲🇽 Cadillac

The medical car is going round. Ted Kravitz explains that it has a higher clearance than the safety car, so can go round more easily.

Brundle explains the difficulty of driving on a resurfaced track, where new asphalt will ooze resin. The traditional wet line at Interlagos may not work, Croft says.

Should be about 10 more minutes of rain – but David Croft gets a storm warning on his phone. When the weather does stop, the medical car will assess conditions.

The drivers that went out are trying to get dry. Ollie Bearman noted for reversing in the pit lane …

Neither Hamilton nor Verstappen went out in the rain. Smart thinking, or not that bothered because of the penalties?

To be clear, here are the grid penalties as far as I know:

George Russell 5 places
Charles Leclerc 10 places
Lewis Hamilton Back of the grid
Max Verstappen Back of the grid
Sergio Pérez Back of the grid

They ran for 2min 23sec before it had to be called off. My faith in Bernie Collins is shattered, she was saying some time during Q2.

And it’s a red flag.

Cars crawling round. Antonelli says he is already aquaplaning.

Cars pulling out of the queue to change their boots.

Looks like everyone will have to go round on intermediates and change to wets, notably Mercedes.

The rain is here!

It sounds as if the rain will come sooner than previously expected. Most of the cars ready to go, as the start of Q1 could be the best time for running.

David Croft talks about the weather, which should be interesting tomorrow too.

Portentous musical countdown time.

Ted Kravitz talking through the pole chances of Antonelli, Russell and Norris in the upgraded McLaren.

Verstappen is going to be at the back of the grid too! Have had technical problems and somehow I missed that. Apologies.

Bernie Collins says Q3 is going to be “very, very interesting” given the incoming rain.

Isack Hadjar has been talking to Naomi Schiff about his love for Ayrton Senna, at the scene of one of the Brazilian great’s most famous wins, the 1991 Brazilian GP, stuck in sixth gear.

In other news, the São Paulo Grand Prix is here to stay, come rain or shine. A five-year extension has been agreed, guaranteeing a race there till 2035. Who can forget the 2007 and 2008 finales, with the title wins for Kimi Räikkönen and Hamilton? The latter had a remarkable late rain intervention that so nearly cost the Briton the first of his seven titles before the weather deteriorated in his favour.

Kravitz adds that Hamilton will take part in qualifying, despite being relegated to the back of the grid. Last week’s winner topped the times in FP3:

Red Bull’s Max Verstappen set the fastest ⁠time in final practice on Saturday for Formula One’s São Paulo Grand Prix, finishing ahead ⁠of Kimi Antonelli. The four-times champion clocked 1min 11.622sec, ⁠0.025 faster than the 20-year-old Mercedes driver who had topped the second practice at Interlagos circuit ⁠on Friday.

Verstappen is set to start Sunday’s race from the ​back of the grid ‌after collecting a ‌penalty for an engine change, while Ferrari’s Lewis Hamilton and ‌Charles Leclerc also face grid drops for taking new internal combustion engines.

McLaren’s Lando Norris, fastest in FP1, was third quickest on Saturday, 0.131 off the pace, with Mercedes’ George Russell fourth. Russell will take a five-place grid penalty, ‌also for an engine change.

…

Brazilian Rafael Camara, making his ​season debut ​after replacing Esteban Ocon at ​Haas, finished the session 15th, ahead of his ​teammate Oliver ‌Bearman. Audi’s ​Gabriel Bortoleto, ​the other local driver, was 10th fastest. Reuters

Ted Kravitz standing in a wet pit lane, and more rain is expected to midway through qualifying.

How has free practice gone generally? Well, Antonelli was not resting on his laurels on Friday:

Kimi Antonelli set the pace in second practice for the ⁠Sao Paulo Grand Prix on Friday after McLaren’s Lando Norris was fastest in the opening session at Interlagos.

The Mercedes driver Antonelli topped the timesheets with a lap of 1min 10.763 seconds under dry but humid ⁠conditions, with Norris second, 0.253 ⁠slower, and Red Bull’s four-times ​world champion Max Verstappen third, 0.259 off the pace.

“There’s a bit of work to do, but overall feeling good and excited for tomorrow. I think we have a good chance,” the Italian said, ⁠referring to Saturday’s qualifying.

George Russell was fourth fastest for Mercedes despite a looming five-place grid penalty for taking a fresh engine, ahead of McLaren’s Oscar Piastri, while Ferrari’s Lewis Hamilton and Charles Leclerc were sixth and seventh.

The 20-year-old Antonelli, ⁠who secured the world title with third place in Mexico last weekend, had ended the first session second fastest behind Norris after returning to action ​for the first time since clinching the championship.

“FP1 was a little ‌bit of a surprise, a pleasant surprise,” ‌said Norris. “FP2, I think we seemed to struggle a little bit more compared to the Mercedes, just two tenths off on every lap, basically. ‌But relative to some of the others, I think we seem pretty good.” Reuters

Half an hour to go to qualifying, and it has not been a good day for Lewis Hamilton, who will start at the back of the grid tomorrow.

Today, in third practice, he had smoke coming out of his car. Hamilton and Charles Leclerc had already replaced their engines, leading to 10-place grid penalties, but as Reuters reported: “The 41-year-old Briton reported ‘strange’ engine vibrations and smoke in the cockpit over the radio before stopping.”

Ferrari then said: “Following today’s FP3 session, the power unit fitted to car #44 was removed for further checks. After completing our analysis, we have decided to replace the entire power unit. Lewis will take part in qualifying but will have to start tomorrow’s race from the back of the grid.”

Giles Richards, meanwhile, has been looking at how Ferrari will try to cope with having two wannabe championship contenders.