Lando Norris has a perfect weekend at the Sao Paulo Grand Prix in Interlagos, but the Formula 1 king is and remains Max Verstappen, who starts from the pit lane and plows brilliantly onto the podium.
In hers sport.de-Debrief on the Formula 1 race in Brazil, RTL data analyst Steffen Kosuch and F1 expert Christian Danner work through the GP, explain how Verstappen was able to get so far forward, but also ask the question whether Red Bull would have been able to do more with a different strategy.
The Formula 1 weekend in Brazil couldn’t have gone better for Lando Norris. The McLaren driver won the Sprint and Grand Prix from pole position. Even if Norris came under a bit of pressure here and there, he always remained in control and took a decisive lead in the world championship fight.
Stable rival Oscar Piastri started the weekend promisingly, but managed to achieve a better result with weak qualifying performances. In the sprint he spun out after a careless mistake when he drove over a wet curb in the Senna S. The main race also got off to a difficult start for the Australian from fourth place on the grid.
Video: Verstappen’s World Cup dream shattered? Danner reacts
Piastri wanted to use the restart on lap five after a safety car phase to maneuver his way past Kimi Antonelli in the Mercedes and Ferrari driver Charles Leclerc in the Senna S. The attack led to a collision that meant Leclerc was out of action and Piastri earned a controversial ten-second penalty.
Gap (seconds) over race laps of the individual cars to race winner Norris
With this mortgage, the McLaren man was only left with fifth place, which put him 24 points behind Norris in the title duel.
Red Bull turns the car inside out – and suddenly Verstappen flies
The man of the race was without question world champion Max Verstappen, who once again put on a top-class show in Ayrton Senna’s country. The Dutchman initially had a hard time with Red Bull in Interlagos and lost ground with fourth place in the sprint. Then the cops completely messed up qualifying: After Verstappen’s exit in Q1, the team pulled the ripcord and turned the car’s setup inside out. Red Bull also installed a new drive and because of the parc fermé rule, Verstappen started from the pit lane at the end of the field.
From the very back, Red Bull planned a long first stint on the hard tire with the defending champions. However, the RB brains changed their strategy early on and put the faster medium tires on Verstappen because he had suffered a slow puncture in the first few laps due to debris on the track. It was one of the keys to Verstappen’s comeback.
With an RB21 that had at least the pace of McLaren after the conversion, the 28-year-old plowed through the field and was even in the lead on lap 51 – albeit with older tires than Norris, who was seven seconds behind him.
It was actually expected that Red Bull would let Verstappen drive through without another pit stop, as he only got fresh media on lap 34. Norris would probably have passed him, but the chance of beating Antonelli, who was 12 seconds behind Verstappen, would have been good.
At the Red Bull command post they saw it differently and brought Verstappen in again to switch to soft tires. The Dutchman came back onto the track behind Norris and the Mercedes duo Antonelli/George Russell. With fresh soft tires, Russell wasn’t a big hurdle for Verstappen. He was close to Antonelli again four laps before the end, but there was no longer enough for a real attack.
Of course, the Red Bull strategists have more information than we observers. From the outside, the question still arises as to whether Red Bull didn’t waste their chance of second place with Verstappen’s last stop.
Exciting: Antonelli has Russell under control
The strong Mercedes rookie Antonelli came second. Interesting that the Italian was ahead of his stablemate Russell the entire weekend.
Ferrari experienced a fiasco. At least Leclerc might have been able to intervene in the fight for the podium and improve Scuderia’s balance sheet without the accident at the start of the race. Lewis Hamilton, on the other hand, was off the mark, struggled with his pace the entire weekend and was involved in various accidents in which he didn’t cut a good figure.
As in Mexico, Haas rookie Oliver Bearman delivered a great race – the reward: sixth place. Some distance behind, Liam Lawson in the Racing Bulls car held off the rest of the field. His direct pursuers Isack Hadjar, Nico Hülkenberg and Pierre Gasly consoled themselves for being stuck behind the New Zealander by winning points.