A Weekend in São Paulo
Graphic design by Gopi.
The São Paulo weekend has always been an exciting race with the constant raining conditions putting drivers and teams to the test nearly every year. We headed into the week with official news that Esteban Ocon has left the team and his replacement, Rafael Câmara, will be finishing out the season in Ocon’s place and will be racing for Haas next year. George Russell started the weekend off with a grid penalty for the race after receiving an Internal Combustion Engine replacement. The Brazilian GP has been on the calendar on and off since 1973 and it has 15 turns and a total of 71 laps to the finish line. Let’s see what the drivers did in a rainy São Paulo.
Qualifying
Q1 starts with Fernando Alonso and his near perfect lap, the best he has done all season. Although he doesn’t keep his provisional pole, he does end Q1 in 6th place. Carlos Sainz, Lando Norris, Pierre Gasly, Alex Albon and Franco Colapinto all tried to improve their standing right as the session ended. Norris and Sainz are able to do so but the rest stay in their original places. Gasly and Colapinto get eliminated along with Gabriel Bortoleto, Sergio Perez, Valtteri Bottas, and Lance Stroll. Max Verstappen chose not to participate in Q2 or Q3 because he had a 30-place grid penalty due to new power units and chose to save his tires for the actual race. Q2 was stopped early because Rafael Câmara crashed into the barriers as the session was close to ending. Those eliminated were Lewis Hamilton, Oscar Piastri, Câmara, Arvid Lindblad, Sainz and Verstappen. Norris took provisional pole a couple minutes into Q3 and no one was able to beat his time for the rest of the session due to intense rain. George Russell qualified P2 but due to his penalty he started the race in P7. Kimi Antonelli took P2, and, in a surprising turn of events, Liam Lawson was in P3. We headed into the race knowing that the rain was only going to get worse and the chaos has yet to begin.
Race
Antonelli got a great push off the start and was able to move to P1 as soon as the lights went out and Lawson similarly was able to push ahead of Norris and into P2. Hamilton moved from P20 all the way to P9 by lap 4 but Verstappen was able to overtake him after Hamilton struggled with some traction going into Turn 11. Lap 4 and 5 there was a great fight between Piastri and Verstappen. Verstappen overtook Piastri going into Turn 13 but Piastri took his spot back and kept defending his place until Turn 3 of the next lap, which led into a straight and provided a great opportunity for Verstappen to pull ahead and maintain the lead through Turn 4. Norris took P2 back from Lawson after some back and forth through turns 8-11 during Lap 6. Hadjar then overtook Lawson who was struggling with his tires.
Russell lost multiple places in the pit exit after losing control of his car while warming up his tires, and many of the drivers were able to drive past while Russell struggled to regain control and turn the car in the right direction. Norris took the lead from Antonelli during Lap 20 after Antonelli mentioned a suspension issue and then he lost control of the rear, steering him off track. By Lap 21, Verstappen climbed from P21 all the way to P3 after overtaking Antonelli, who swung off track again during Turn 1. Through all this chaos Hadjar was able to climb to P2 but got overtaken by his teammate. On Lap 66 we saw Hulkenberg masterfully fight his way into the points after overtaking Lindblad for P10 even though Lindblad had the inside line and better positioning at moments. Lando Norris became a back-to-back winner at the São Paulo Grand Prix after qualifying in P1 and winning this season and last season. The two Redbulls, Verstappen and Hadjar, finished out the podium and behind them were the two Mercedes drivers, Russell and Antonelli. Congratulations to Mercedes who won the Constructors Championship this weekend; let's see what the Las Vegas Grand Prix brings us next weekend.
