Lewis Hamilton will launch his bid to win the drivers' championship at a third F1 team when he makes his much-anticipated debut for Ferrari in the season-opening Australian Grand Prix.
Australian Piastri, winner of four of the last five races, lapped the Imola circuit with a fastest time of one minute 16.545 seconds on the softest tyre compound with Norris 0.032 slower on a sunny afternoon.
Norris had shown his pace in final practice when he became the third different driver to top the timesheets in the three sessions, punching out an impressive lap 0.345 faster than anyone else.
Lando Norris stretched his Formula One championship lead to nine points after winning Saturday's Sao Paulo sprint while McLaren teammate and title rival Oscar Piastri crashed in a big blow to the Australian's bid to get back on top.
On a rainsoaked afternoon that saw the race twice stopped and re-started with the safety car deployed five times, there were also those who felt the sport had erred too far on the side of caution.
McLaren's Oscar Piastri ended a long win drought with a pole-to-flag victory in the Qatar Grand Prix sprint race in Doha.
Force India's Sergio Perez has said he is yet to decide if he will drive for the Formula One team next season.
Kimi Raikkonen will miss the last two races of the Formula One season in Texas and Brazil after deciding to have back surgery next week, the Lotus driver's manager said on Sunday.
McLaren's Lando Norris won the Sao Paulo Grand Prix to surge 24 points clear in the Formula One championship on Sunday.
Lando Norris can be crowned champion on Sunday but a win for Oscar Piastri would take the battle down to a final showdown in Abu Dhabi next weekend.
Norris last led the standings in April, a gap of 189 days, and had not won a race since Hungary in early August. Sunday was his sixth victory of the season, one less than Piastri, and career 10th.
Oscar Piastri won the Dutch Grand Prix to take a mighty 34 point lead in the Formula One championship on Sunday as McLaren teammate and title rival Lando Norris saw his hopes go up in smoke.
Lando Norris completed a Hungarian Grand Prix practice double on Friday as runaway leaders McLaren dominated both sessions while leaving something in reserve and almost colliding at the end.
A Ferrari Testarossa sports car stolen from Austrian Formula One driver Gerhard Berger during the 1995 San Marino Grand Prix weekend has been recovered by London police almost 29 years later.
Formula One rolls into Malaysia this week for the second round of the championship at the Sepang International Circuit, where talk surrounding the utter dominance of Mercedes will for once take a back seat to the belated arrival of Fernando Alonso.
Formula One's governing body has banned teams from sending drivers coded messages under a controversial clampdown on the use of radio communications from this weekend's Singapore Grand Prix.
Lewis Hamilton smashed the Shanghai circuit lap record on his way to a stunning first sprint race pole for Ferrari in China on Friday.
Felipe Massa will drive a Ferrari Formula One car again this year as the Brazilian continues his recovery from life-threatening head injuries suffered in July, Ferrari said on Sunday.
Verstappen collided with Leclerc and twice with Mercedes' George Russell after the safety car restart.
A General Motors-backed Cadillac entry will become Formula One's 11th team next year after securing formal approval from the commercial rights holders and governing FIA on Friday.
Verstappen wins in Qatar to ensure three-way title showdown
Stewards at the Brazilian race summoned Leclerc on Friday, acting on a report from the governing FIA's media delegate and after reviewing a written transcript.
Finland's Valtteri Bottas and Brazilian Felipe Massa will stay at Williams in 2015 after the resurgent Formula One team announced on Sunday what had to be one of their easiest decisions of the season.
Unlike the Australian GP, where the majority of drivers carried out only one pit-stop, of Sunday's second race of the season, at Sepang, Malaysia, will see at least two, says Raja Sen.
Formula One will crown its champion in Abu Dhabi on Sunday with McLaren's Lando Norris and Oscar Piastri both seeking to dethrone Red Bull's Max Verstappen and deny the Dutchman his fifth title in a row.
The two McLaren drivers were ruled out for excessive skid plank wear hours after the race had ended and the podium champagne been sprayed.
Ferrari great Michael Schumacher, now 56, has not been seen in public since the seven-times World champion German suffered a serious brain injury in an accident while skiing in the French Alps in December 2013.
Lewis Hamilton can set more British Formula One records in Brazil this weekend but it is the world championship he wants and that will have to wait.
While Formula One rivals head to the sea or mountains at the start of the August break, Max Verstappen has some driving lessons on the horizon.
Lando Norris held off McLaren teammate Oscar Piastri to win the Hungarian Grand Prix on a one-stop strategy and slash the Australian's Formula One lead to nine points going into the August break.
Formula One drivers sought reassurance from tyre supplier Pirelli on Friday after world champion Sebastian Vettel and Ferrari's Fernando Alonso suffered punctures in second practice at the Belgian Grand Prix.
Piastri now leads Britain's Norris by 14 points with five rounds and two sprints remaining, while Verstappen has slashed his gap to the Australian to 40 after being 104 behind at the end of August.
Seven times Formula One world champion Lewis Hamilton is set for a shock switch from Mercedes to Ferrari in 2025 as replacement for Spanish driver Carlos Sainz, according to multiple media reports on Thursday.
Max Verstappen seized pole position for Sunday's US Grand Prix while Formula One leader Oscar Piastri qualified sixth after a costly sprint race collision with his McLaren teammate Lando Norris.
The win was a first for Ferrari in Mexico since 1990 and fourth of Carlos Sainz's career.
Nico Rosberg will have Formula One history in his sights in Spain this weekend, even if Dutch teenager Max Verstappen seizes his share of the limelight. The championship leader has won seven races in a row, including the last three of 2015, and can join fellow-German Michael Schumacher (2004) and Britain's Nigel Mansell (1992) as the only drivers to start a season with five successive victories. The chances of that happening looked remote this time last year, when Mercedes team mate Lewis Hamilton had won three of the first four and was heading for a third title, but Rosberg is now 43 points clear of the Briton. As 18-year-old Verstappen would agree, after his rapid promotion from Toro Rosso in a swap with demoted Russian Daniil Kvyat, Formula One moves fast off the track as well as on it. "I'm just enjoying the moment and the form I'm in, doing my best to keep it going and hoping I can carry it through to the end of the season," said Rosberg, 11/10 at bookmakers' William Hill with Hamilton at 5/4.
Hamilton, who clinched his fourth world championship in Mexico two weeks ago, started from the pitlane after crashing in qualifying but led the race after 31 of 71 laps when others pitted.
George Russell put his Mercedes on pole position in Canada for the second year in a row on Saturday with Red Bull rival Max Verstappen alongside on the front row.
McLaren's Lando Norris took pole position for the Qatar Grand Prix sprint on Friday with Mercedes' George Russell denying the Formula One leaders a front row.
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