Lando Norris will start from pole position at the Sao Paulo Grand Prix in a marathon qualifying session in rainy weather, while his title rival Max Verstappen will only start from 17th place on the grid.

There were five red flags at the grid meeting, postponed until Saturday due to thunderstorms, as drivers struggled to keep their cars on the road in extremely slippery conditions and sometimes torrential rain.

Lance Stroll's crash at the Curva do Sol in the final minute of the second quarter had the biggest impact on the title, costing championship leader Max Verstappen and Red Bull Racing teammate Sergio Perez a place in the top 10.

It was particularly costly for Verstappen, who has to start the Grand Prix in 17th place due to a penalty of five starting places for a new combustion engine, giving pole winner Norris the chance to make up for a significant part of his 44-point deficit in the championship .

Norris' pole was decided in the first five minutes of the third quarter, when the top nine cars – excluding Stroll's crashed Aston Martin – took to the track for uninterrupted laps in case conditions worsened.

The McLaren driver was the most competitive driver throughout, moving into the lead twice before qualifying was interrupted for the fourth time, this time due to Fernando Alonso's crash on the high-speed Mergulho circuit.

The Spaniard's Aston Martin suddenly and without warning snapped out from under him as he turned on the engine and plowed into the rear guardrail at high speed. If there is damage to the front and rear of the car, there could be a risk of a hasty change of the transmission and drive unit in the three hours until the start of the Grand Prix.

The session resumed after 12 minutes, but no sooner had it started furiously than it was interrupted again, this time for Alex Albon, who had written off his Williams in a monster first-corner crash.

The Thai driver's car skidded under emergency braking, spun backwards and suffered a violent impact to the right side and rear before coming to rest in a smoldering heap in the drain. He was able to free himself from the rubble, but the team will have their hands full repairing the car in time for the Grand Prix.

If Albon's car can be repaired, it may come at the expense of efforts to repair teammate Franco Colapinto's car after the rookie crashed in the first quarter on a miserable afternoon for Williams mechanics.

The session resumed with just over three minutes on the clock and seven cars remaining, and Norris picked up where he left off, setting the fastest laps to take pole after nearly 1 hour and 45 minutes of intermittent on-track action to put out of reach.

“There was a lot going on today,” he said. “But I’m super, super happy because I had big problems at the start of qualifying.

“The risk-reward ratio was not easy today. Looking ahead. Things are never easy under these conditions. It's never about calming down and moving on. We'll see. We will prepare well.”

George Russell improved late to take second, the Mercedes driver leading by 0.173 seconds.

“It was a great session,” he said. “Let’s see what we can do in the race.”

Yuki Tsunoda was sensational in the wet and took the best third starting position of his career, 0.706 seconds behind RB.

“It was very difficult,” he said. “In any case, I had fun. I think we had good pace straight away. I had a few mistakes, but also a bit of luck.

“I think overall we did a really good job as a team, including Liam.”

Esteban Ocon starts fourth for Alpine ahead of Lawson in the second RB, the two drivers separated by just 0.009 seconds.

Charles Leclerc finished sixth after Oscar Piastri caused a yellow flag in the first corner on his final lap.

Piastri was eighth fastest behind the crashed Albon, with the wrecks of Alonso and Stroll's Aston Martin cars completing the top 10.

Valtteri Bottas qualified 11th, his best one-lap result since the Chinese Grand Prix in April, ahead of Verstappen and Perez.

Perez was outraged at missing the cut-off and criticized the team for having him queue in the pit lane to get back on track after Sainz's red flag while his tires were cooling in the rain. This meant he couldn't improve his time quickly enough as he had to warm up his tires again on track, which exposed him to Stroll's red flag, which knocked him out of qualifying early.

“Come on, guys!” he shouted. “We have to do a better program. We should have waited. If everyone is already waiting at the end of the pit lane, why are we doing this?”

Carlos Sainz finished 14th after crashing his Ferrari at the Senna S, his car leaving the road and making violent contact with the wall separating the track from the pit exit, causing the second red flag of the day.

He and Pierre Gasly, who qualified 15th, will move up a place on the grid thanks to Verstappen's penalty, as will Lewis Hamilton, who fought the early wet weather hardest and qualified 16th after getting it had again failed to drive a clean lap in a car that he described as “undriveable”.

Hamilton's penultimate lap wasn't good enough to take him out of the bottom five, and although he temporarily jumped to 14th, improvements from others ensured he would never retain that place.

“This damn car, man,” he radioed in frustration and was eliminated from Q1 for the second time in three Grands Prix.

Oliver Bearman was the fastest Haas, but ended up in 17th place – he will also make up a place after Verstappen's penalty – and his teammate Nico Hülkenberg took 19th place.

Colapinto was caught between them, although he crashed out of qualifying less than 10 minutes into Q1 when his Williams' wheels spun as he exited the Senna S and he spun 360 degrees and crashed into the outer barriers of the Curva do Sol. His mechanics were seen by television cameras with their heads bowed, knowing they had less than five hours to repair the car's right-handers before the lights went out for the Grand Prix.

Zhou Guanyu was last in the soaking wet first session for Sauber.