Sprint

Norris had pole position nearly set in until Piastri‘s last lap on sprint qualifying where he beat him by 3 hundredths of the second. A wheel and a wing for you visual people out there.

Piastri has a great start to cover off Norris and keeps his first position. The top five remaining in the same order on the start.

Verstappen and Charles Leclerc were battling out for third position this battle continue throughout the sprint race. On lap 18 Verstappen overtakes Charles Leclerc for third.

Hulkenberg stopped on track. This brought McLaren‘s team orders to swap around Norris and Piastri to maximise points. There are some controversy about how long the yellow flag stayed out before the virtual safety car was deployed. However, the car was still moving and rolling. It’s mostly Max Verstappen fans complaining mind.

Max received the penalty post race for five seconds for going to early on the virtual safety car not being within the Delta. He lost 3rd position and was demoted to 4th

It was a McLaren 1-2 with Norris getting four points in sprint

Qualifying

Qualifying was a massive load of drama. First of all Saturday qualifying was cancelled due to the heavy downpour and by heavy downpour, I mean very heavy. Therefore, it was rescheduled to Sunday just before the race

There was still a lot of standing water on the track. In Q3, we saw Hamilton out and nearly Norris. In Q2 we saw both RedBulls and Sainz out due to an unfortunate red flag. Verstappen was carrying an engine penalty of 5 second so started 17th. Norris took pole position with some margin however surprise appearance in third from Yuki tsunoda.

Start of the Race

Well, that was a bit of a shambles with Stroll crashing on the formation Lap. Honestly, how is this guy still in F1?

Lance Stroll’s nonsense caused an aborted start. Norris seemed to revert to his mid season form getting a rather poor start off the line and losing 1st position to Russell. Norris and Russell quickly managed to establish a three second gap before the end of the first lap.

Lewis Hamilton and Verstappen gained 4 positions each on the first lap. due to stroll not crashing and Albon not participating. You may have heard that they gained many more positions however those were empty grid spaces. In terms of overtakes they only gained four on the first lap. We also saw Sergio Perez spin out put him into last place.

The Race

I do feel that in everyone’s race comments and reviews that they forget that Russell and Norris were so far ahead before all the chaos in just a few laps as well. Safety car can change races and bring drivers into the running. Everyone seems to have forgotten about that.

Verstappen on Lap 10 overtook the second McLaren of Piastri. The McLaren didn’t look great under breaking in wet conditions I’d have to say. This will definitely be a work on for them. It was almost as like they couldn’t take the defensive line or be aggressive. This ultimately left the window open, allowing Max to easily sail past.

Russell and Norris had a massive buffer to 3rd place of nearly 13 seconds. Then the pivotal moment in the race happens a virtual safety car comes out due to NHulkenberg getting stuck. Hulkenberg was ultimately disqualified as he used the help of the marshals to get his car moving again. 

This brought several cars into the pit. Including both McLaren and both Mercedes. This incident cost McLaren a Mercedes massively as the virtual safety car finished earlier than it should have. Both Russell and Norris’s cars came into the pits so there was almost 0 gain on the pit. However, the worst was yet to come for the two.

On Lap 32, Colapinto had a big crash under safety car which then red flagged the race. This Nullified the chances of Norris and Russell as everyone that hadn’t pitted got a free 0 second pitstop. As a Williams fan, I was disappointed that both cars didn’t get to finish the race.

In the space of 5 laps, the two previous 1 and 2 with a significant lead were not in contention for a podium let alone a win.

Well done to Max and RedBull for making the choice to stay out. It did surprise me that Russell and Norris as they were massively in control. Given the conditions there was a high likelihood of another safety car. I just don’t understand that decision. This only put an Alpine in the way of a Red Bull was easy pickings Max. I then knew it was game over.

On lap 39 another safety car was deployed after Sainz put his car into the barriers. It was a pointless drive for Sainz he just couldn’t get going.

On the restart Verstappen managed to get an easy overtake on Esteban Ocon down the inside of term one which seem to be his preferred overtake spot throughout the race. He got way better traction on the inside line than any other car.

Norris and Piastri swapped around on lap 46 to maximise points for Norris. a lot of people don’t like this however it’s mathematically still possible for Norris to win the WDC. It is extremely unlikely. On the off chance they must maximise every opportunity. I do however think next season they need to earn who is number one. Norris got it this season because he clearly went ahead however, Piastri has shown amazing pace and to be honest in many instances he is better than Norris.

The race then didn’t really budge from that restart nothing changed apart from the fact that Hamilton somehow managed to get a point and in that car and after going off several times I don’t know how he managed it and bouncing like a jack in the box. His Brazil highlight was definitely driving Senna’s McLaren.

Max Crossed the line from 17th to 1st. Winning the Brazilian Grand Prix.

Summary

Overall I am not too sure what to think of this race. It closed the field several times however this was to the disadvantage of the ongoing WDC. We all wanted another last race decider and I feel like we have been robbed of that due to the most incidents I have seen in a long time. At the same we saw Alpine who are a financially struggling team get two podium places and potentially saved the team and prelonged their lifespan. If we list it we had:

• Aborted Start

• Rolling Start

• Pitlane Start

• Wet and Rain

• Safety Car’s

• Virtual Safety Car’s

• Red Flags

• Did Not Starts

• Did Not Finish

• Disqualification

• Start Infringements

• Time Penalties

• Team Orders

• Unexpected Race Leaders

• Unexpected Podium

• Back of the grid start to winner

Was it a good race though? Flat no. I didn’t see much if any racing.

Watch Highlights Here

Standings

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