Norris earns pole for Sao Paulo GP as grid shaken up by penalties for engine changes

SAO PAULO (AP) — McLaren's Lando Norris earned pole position for the Sao Paulo Grand Prix for a third consecutive time and in heavy rain on Saturday.

Final qualifying positions were heavily influenced by power unit changes that sent drivers such as Mercedes' George Russell and Ferrari's Charles Leclerc towards the back of the grid.

Russell and Leclerc were second and fourth but penalized.

Norris beat Russell by 0.204 seconds for his first pole since September at the Madrid GP.

New Formula 1 champion Kimi Antonelli will start from second place after Russell received a five-place grid penalty for adding fresh engine components to his car. Russell will start seventh.

Racing Bull's Liam Lawson will start third after Leclerc was also penalized, which also promoted Audi's Nico Hulkenberg to fourth on the grid on Sunday.

Leclerc, who arrived in Brazil late on Thursday after the birth of his daughter, will start from 14th place.

Norris said changing tires throughout the session was a challenge in the rain.

“You feel you want to push so much more but you can't,” Norris said. "It was about getting two laps in at the beginning and not making any mistakes, and that’s exactly what we did. So it’s been a very good day.”

To prove Norris' point, both Brazilians crashed during qualifying.

Haas rookie Rafael Câmara will start from 11th position in his debut after hitting the wall. He has taken the seat of Esteban Ocon while still competing in Formula 2.

Audi's Gabriel Bortoleto also crashed and will kick off from 19th place, ahead of Ferrari's Lewis Hamilton, Red Bull's Max Verstappen, and Cadillac's Sergio Pérez, all penalized for power unit changes.

Hamilton and Verstappen were 11th and 16th in qualifying, respectively, which did not advance them to the final part of the session.

“I know that I have to start from the back, so we didn’t want to take too much risk and just put a lap on the board in Q1,” Verstappen said. “Maybe it’s the best place to take it. Who knows? We will see tomorrow how far we can move up to the front, try and have a bit of fun.”

The two Ferrari drivers were initially handed 10-place grid penalties after exceeding their season allocations by taking fresh internal combustion engines. Later, Hamilton changed more parts of his power unit, which will put him further back on the grid.

“It is a shame for the penalty because I think we had a car that could have fought further up the order, but tomorrow is a new day,” Hamilton said.

He added he and Leclerc had got over their racing incident in Mexico last weekend.

Cadillac's Pérez, who will start last, was punished after his car was equipped with new elements.

Starting from the back at Interlagos doesn't necessarily mean a lost race for top drivers. Hamilton had a legendary charge from the back in 2021 and Verstappen scored a stunning victory from 17th in 2024.

Mercedes needs to outscore Ferrari by three points to win the constructors’ championship at Interlagos. Team principal Toto Wolff said Mercedes “should make it” with a solid race.

Wolff also said Russell was on his way to clocking the fastest lap in qualifying but received orders to abort.

“Sometimes it is a 50-50 call. George was absolutely the quickest in all sessions,” Wolff said.

Earlier, Verstappen clocked the fastest lap in the final practice session ahead of Antonelli. The Dutchman led the Italian by 0.025 of a second.

Norris finished third, with Russell in fourth.

Hamilton ended in 12th position, more than one second behind Verstappen.

See AP’s full auto racing coverage here

Mercedes driver Andrea Kimi Antonelli of Italy puts on his helmet during the qualifying session for the Brazilian Formula One Grand Prix in Sao Paulo, Saturday, Nov. 7, 2026. (Nelson Almeida/Pool Photo via AP)

Mechanics push Mercedes driver Andrea Kimi Antonelli's car back into the team garage during heavy rain before the third practice session of the Brazilian Formula One Grand Prix in Sao Paulo, Saturday, Nov. 7, 2026. (Nelson Almeida/Pool Photo via AP)

McLaren driver Lando Norris of Britain steers his car during the third practice session of the Brazilian Formula One Grand Prix in Sao Paulo, Saturday, Nov. 7, 2026. (AP Photo/Ettore Chiereguini)

McLaren driver Lando Norris of Britain steers his car during the qualifying session for the Brazilian Formula One Grand Prix in Sao Paulo, Saturday, Nov. 7, 2026. (AP Photo/Andre Penner)

Red Bull driver Max Verstappen of the Netherlands smiles as he arrives at the paddock for the third practice session of the Brazilian Formula One Grand Prix in Sao Paulo, Saturday, Nov. 7, 2026. (AP Photo/Ettore Chiereguini)

Red Bull driver Max Verstappen of the Netherlands prepares for the third practice session of the Brazilian Formula One Grand Prix in Sao Paulo, Saturday, Nov. 7, 2026. (AP Photo/Ettore Chiereguini)

JACKSON, Miss. (AP) — Democrat Scott Colom hasn't won Mississippi’s U.S. Senate race, but the local prosecutor was welcomed as a historic figure Friday as he strolled through the Farish Street business district where civil rights leaders once organized.

“It’s so wonderful! It’s so wonderful to have Scott Colom as our representative,” said Maati Jone Primm, who owns Marshall’s Music & Bookstore in Jackson.

The state is still tallying ballots that could make Colom the first Black senator from this Deep South state since post-Civil War Reconstruction. The possibility of Colom defeating Republican Sen. Cindy Hyde-Smith puts many Black voters somewhere between cautious optimism and outright celebration in a state where nearly 40% of the population is Black but the top representation for generations has been white.

“I’m so glad we are at the point where we are,” said Sorie Tarawally, a 76-year-old attorney who has long known Colom’s father. He called the 43-year-old candidate “the man, our messiah, our savior.”

The contest remains too early for The Associated Press to call, and Colom’s historic bid will hinge on a tedious process playing out in elections offices across Mississippi’s 82 counties. Local officials are receiving and examining absentee and provisional ballots, called affidavit ballots, before deadlines next week. Volunteers and lawyers representing each campaign look on in anticipation of potential litigation.

“We’re going to make sure everything is followed according to the law, and I have confidence in those local officials,” Colom said. “They’re doing their jobs. Got to be patient with them.”

Colom said ballots tallied since Tuesday's election lean in his favor, and he chided Hyde-Smith for not explaining her strategy going forward.

“She’s still our senator. Where is she? Why is she not doing any interviews?” Colom asked. “Why can’t she explain what her pathway to success is?"

Hyde-Smith has not appeared publicly since election night, when she essentially declared victory despite a razor-thin margin with ballots still uncounted.

"We are not backing down," she posted Friday on social media. “This election is not over. Our team is working across Mississippi to monitor the remaining ballots and protect the integrity of the process. We will see this through to the very end!”

The pool of outstanding ballots includes absentee ballots, which can be counted in Mississippi as long as they are received by Tuesday, five business days after the election. The rest are affidavit ballots, which are cast at the polls when there's a glitch: Perhaps the person's name was not on the rolls or the person did not have proper identification, or a poll worker determined the person's identification did not precisely match the name on the list.

Citizens who had identification issues have until Tuesday to address those matters in person at their local elections office. For people who were not on a precinct’s rolls, local officials can verify a person's status using previous records and information on the affidavit that person filed when filling out a ballot. That person typically has no responsibility to come to a local elections office; ballot status can be found on the Mississippi secretary of state’s office website.

Counties have until Friday to certify complete results to the secretary of state.

Mississippi law has no provision for a statewide recount. Campaigns could seek court orders, usually county by county, seeking to examine ballots.

Democrats already have won control of the Senate, so the result in Mississippi would not change the balance of power in Washington.

But it would mark a seismic shift in the state, where white conservatives have dominated the Statehouse and congressional delegation for nearly 150 years. Through Jim Crow segregation and the Civil Rights era, those leaders were nearly all Democrats. After the Civil Rights Movement, they overwhelmingly shifted to Republicans. For Black Mississippians, the result was the same: a lack of proportional representation at the top levels of state government and in Washington.

Colom was initially viewed as a long shot, and it wasn't until late October that Senate Democrats' top campaign group started spending on advertising to support him. But the midterms revealed a broad backlash against redistricting efforts in the South that were aimed at boosting Republicans and, by extension, reducing Black representation.

Primm's bookstore, where Colom visited on Friday, opened in the 1930s and is recognized as the oldest Black-owned bookstore in the U.S.

She said the Farish Street neighborhood still represents Black Mississippians’ “first migration, from the plantation to the city.” Having Colom there as a potential senator “makes us so proud, and it gives us someone to aspire to. Our youth need to see the possibilities for their lives, and we do when we see our next senator from Mississippi.”

Maryland Sen. Angela Alsobrooks, who this summer was the first Democratic senator to campaign with Colom, said in an interview that she came away from that trip knowing that voters “would be really energized by a candidate like Scott.” But Alsobrooks, who is her state's first Black senator, added that “the takeaway I had when I visited Mississippi was that there was a belief problem” after years of defeats.

“They now know that their vote matters,” she said.

As he campaigned, Colom emphasized that he can represent all Mississippians, and he said President Donald Trump’s policies — the war with Iran and tariffs, especially — cut across all demographic lines. He even celebrated the extended ballot counting process as a benefit to the state's 2.95 million residents.

“I’m so glad the national press is getting to see the beauty of our state,” he said.

But Colom and his Black supporters also have never ignored the significance of his candidacy as a Black man.

“We are motivated by the gross inequalities we have seen in society and how only one side seems to benefit,” said Tarawally, who was born in Sierra Leone and arrived in the Deep South to attend law school at the University of Mississippi. “So, we want a person who speaks to our benefit.”

Colom ended his campaign with an ad set at the Jackson home of Medgar Evers, the civil rights leader who was gunned down in 1963 in his own driveway, dying in front of his wife and children.

“It’s a powerful reminder of the sacrifice to gain the ballot, and nobody sacrificed more than Medgar Evers and his family,” Colom said Friday.

“What was important to me about that ad is we didn’t ask people to vote for me. We just talked about the sacrifice, talked about the story,” he continued. “We just wanted that to be the closing ad because I wanted that to be the last message that the people of Mississippi heard.”

U.S. Sen. Cindy Hyde-Smith, R-Miss., addresses supporters at her victory party in Flowood, Miss., Tuesday, Nov. 3, 2026. (Rogelio V. Solis/Mississippi Free Press via AP)

Democratic candidate for U.S. Senate Scott Colom speaks to reporters during a campaign stop at record and comic store OffBeat, Friday, Nov. 6, 2026, in Jackson, Miss. (AP Photo/Ellen Schmidt)

Bags of ballots are stored at the Hinds County Election Commission as the U.S. Senate race between Democratic candidate Scott Colom and incumbent Republican Sen. Cindy Hyde-Smith has not yet been called, Friday, Nov. 6, 2026, in Jackson, Miss. (AP Photo/Ellen Schmidt)

Democratic candidate for U.S. Senate Scott Colom, left, greets resident Peggie Smith during a campaign event at the Tougaloo Senior Citizens Center, Friday, Nov. 6, 2026, in Jackson, Miss. (AP Photo/Ellen Schmidt)

Democratic candidate for U.S. Senate Scott Colom, right, talks with owner Maati Jone Primm during a campaign stop at Marshall's Music and Book Store, which is recognized as the oldest Black-owned bookstore in the U.S., Friday, Nov. 6, 2026, in Jackson, Miss. (AP Photo/Ellen Schmidt)