Antonelli Turns the Tables on Norris to Top Friday Practice in Brazil

There is a particular kind of confidence that comes with a championship already in the pocket, and Kimi Antonelli wore it all over Interlagos on Friday afternoon. Five days after sealing the world title in Mexico City, the 19-year-old Mercedes driver went back to work at the São Paulo Grand Prix and finished the day as the man to beat, topping second practice with a lap of 1:10.763 — the only time of the day under 1:11.

It was a reversal of the morning's order. Lando Norris had set the pace in first practice, and for a while in the afternoon it looked as though the McLaren driver might do the double. Norris, running McLaren's upgraded MCL40 with its new front wing, posted a 1:11.016 that briefly put him on top, only for Antonelli to dip below the 1:11 barrier and open up a quarter of a second over the field. Max Verstappen slotted in third, just six thousandths behind Norris, with George Russell's second Mercedes fourth and Oscar Piastri's McLaren fifth. The top five were covered by barely three tenths of a second, which is the kind of closeness Interlagos tends to produce — and the kind that makes Saturday's qualifying genuinely hard to call.

Antonelli's lap did not come easily. The Mercedes was bottoming heavily over Interlagos' famously bumpy surface, the car thudding and sparking its way around the undulating 4.3-kilometre lap, yet the young Italian kept finding time. His first proper effort on the hard tyres, a 1:11.8, already had him at the sharp end, and once the field moved onto the soft rubber he was the one who made the decisive jump, setting his benchmark just before the halfway mark of the session and then consolidating it with long runs as the hour wound down.

There was colour elsewhere in the session, too. Verstappen, never shy with a radio complaint, spent part of the afternoon grumbling about his Red Bull's clutch, and he climbed out of the car with five minutes still to run, his day done early. Russell, who carries a five-place grid penalty into Sunday for taking a new engine, briefly led the times before Norris and Verstappen pushed him back to fourth. Lewis Hamilton ended the day sixth in the Ferrari, ahead of team-mate Charles Leclerc, who was left frustrated after being impeded on the straight by Haas debutant Rafael Camara — an incident the stewards noted and will look at after the session. Camara finished 16th on his first full day in a Formula 1 car.

The home crowd, meanwhile, had something to cheer in Gabriel Bortoleto, who put his Audi eighth as the team's only runner in the session after Nico Hülkenberg was unable to take part at all, his car still being repaired after the problems that struck in first practice. Bortoleto's lap, a little over a second off Antonelli's pace, was a tidy piece of work on a day when simply staying out of trouble was half the battle.

For Antonelli, though, the afternoon was about something simpler: the champion is not coasting. He arrived in Brazil with the title already won and the constructors' fight still live for Mercedes, and he spent Friday reminding everyone — Norris, Verstappen, and the rest — that the crown has not dulled him. Final practice and qualifying follow on Saturday, and on Friday's evidence, the fight for pole is wide open.