Winners and losers from F1’s chaotic Brazilian Grand Prix
Are you not entertained? While Lando Norris took a well-deserved third win of the campaign, Mercedes collectively slipped up and Max Verstappen produced yet another Brazilian Grand Prix masterclass.
Winner: Lando Norris
McLaren team boss Andrea Stella loves describing Lando Norris as the low-grip master. When conditions are difficult, Norris is one the very best at adapting and getting the most out of his equipment.
“He’s very sensitive in understanding how much grip is available and very, I would say, even complete as a driver,” Stella said. “It’s not the first time that when you have mixed variable conditions, he kind of is one of the fastest in finding the limit.”
Norris certainly delivered when it mattered, taking pole in a thrilling qualifying shootout – with or without Mercedes’ miscommunication, is the consensus – before going on to win the race in a controlled fashion.
Norris’s cause was helped by Max Verstappen’s challenge stalling after the switch to slicks affected his car balance, which Red Bull is still looking into. But Norris never looked like losing the race, and when he’s had a car to win he has taken three out of four wins, only Madrid eluding him due to bad luck with the safety car timing.
It was almost a flawless performance, then, right until the podium ceremony when Norris smashed a champagne bottle and got caught in the pyrotechnics. Thankfully there was no harm done.
Lando Norris, McLaren
Photo by: Alastair Staley / LAT Images via Getty Images
Winner/Loser: Mercedes
The Brazilian GP is where Mercedes celebrated the double, but in isolation it was a race to forget. In the hands of newly minted world champion Kimi Antonelli, Mercedes looked like the team to beat in practice with impressive looking long runs. However, in the race both the Italian and George Russell slipped up, with Antonelli spinning out of the lead after encountering handling issues and Russell doing an about-face at pit exit.
Nevertheless, the Silver Arrows did enough to seal their ninth constructors’ crown and their first since the fateful 2021 season, so Toto Wolff and his troops won’t care one bit about the individual Brazil result. When you’re as consistently competitive as Mercedes has been, it is but a footnote at the end of a triumphant campaign.
Winner: Max Verstappen
What is it with Max Verstappen and epic comeback races in Sao Paulo? This is now the third consecutive year Verstappen had to start at the rear and is somehow able to make the podium, gaining a combined 51 positions.
One local journalist suggested there must be something in the water in the lake the circuit is named after. Our Brazilian friend may be half-right. But perhaps it’s not about the water from the ‘lagos’ in Interlagos, but the rain that tends to throw a spanner in the works and brings out the best in the likes of Verstappen.
When the four-time world champion got to within nine seconds of Norris, it even looked like a win from 21st on the grid was on the cards, but that’s where his victory challenge faded. “As soon as I switched to the slicks, I had an extreme amount of oversteer in the car in the high-speed corners, which made it super difficult to drive,” he said. “We need to understand if something broke on the car, some kind of aero loss or whatever, because this was not normal.”
While Verstappen put his usual heroics on display, Ferrari had a much tougher time undoing its respective grid penalties for Charles Leclerc and Lewis Hamilton. The race started in spectacular fashion for 20th-placed Hamilton, though. He worked his way around the outside of a bunch of traffic at Turn 1 and then picked off a few more cars on the run to Turn 4 to move up to 11th in the space of one lap.
Lewis Hamilton, Ferrari
Photo by: Simon Galloway / LAT Images via Getty Images
But Hamilton and team-mate Leclerc were among the first cars to start fading on the intermediates with what appeared to be excessive rear tyre wear as the track dried up, and that put both cars on the back foot.
Hamilton later suffered a spin coming onto the straight as the heavens opened up again, right before collecting intermediates, while Leclerc was rather harshly punished with a five-second for a tiny touch blow with Lawson at the end.
Both drivers caused some excitement with a brief wheel-to-wheel battle, coming against the backdrop of last weeks’ drama in Mexico. But despite quotes from all involved suggesting the Mexico issue has been fully resolved between Hamilton, Leclerc and team principal Fred Vasseur, time will tell if that’s really the case.
Racing in the worst conditions he ever experienced, Isack Hadjar delivered what is likely his best-ever race. This is the type of race where Verstappen needed a rear gunner, and Hadjar’s willingness to entertain alternate strategies could have played in Red Bull’s favour as it tried to put pressure on Norris.
In the end it didn’t really matter, and Hadjar stayed where he was in third. But after waving Verstappen past in the chase on Norris, the young Frenchman was also bold enough to ask Red Bull about reverting the positions again in case Verstappen didn’t manage to take the lead. A meek and deferential number two driver he is not.
For a team that was well in the hunt for fifth in the championship, the second half of the season has been bitterly disappointing for Alpine. While Racing Bulls has marched towards the best of the rest spot at a canter, Alpine has struggled to string points-scoring weekends together. And when it did, it shot itself in the foot with penalties, like in Mexico.
Pierre Gasly, Alpine
Photo by: Colin McMaster / LAT Images via Getty Images
Brazil was different in that regard, as Alpine was simply nowhere all weekend in the wet, with all signs pointing towards an aerodynamic deficiency with its current package in rainy conditions. After finishing one spot behind team-mate Franco Colapinto in 14th, Pierre Gasly said: “We have a lot to review especially with our performance in the wet this weekend as the grip was very poor on both the intermediates and the extreme wets.
“After yesterday’s frustration in qualifying, we saw some odd things in the aerodynamic data with the car in the wet which I know we are going to take time to review and further understand.”
Ah, the curious case of Liam Lawson. Leclerc’s penalty promoted the New Zealander to seventh as his fight to stay on the grid goes on, despite amassing twice the number of points as his team-mate.
Lawson followed up his heroics in a wet qualifying session with a blistering start, following Antonelli past Norris through the Senna S to hold second early on. But as drivers got their intermediates into the operating window, his performance normalised and he later started slipping back into the pack with rear tyre overheating.
Nevertheless, Lawson showed more fight and more reasons for the various Red Bull and Racing Bulls chiefs to keep him: “At the moment I’m just trying to enjoy driving the car because with everything else going on I don’t really know what else I’m meant to do.”
When rain is in the air, you can bet on Fernando Alonso being box office. The wily old Spaniard duly delivered in qualifying, advancing to Q3 which became eighth on the grid after Brazil’s grid penalty bonanza.
Charles Leclerc, Ferrari, Fernando Alonso, Aston Martin Racing
Photo by: Simon Galloway / LAT Images via Getty Images
Alonso’s start was a disaster, dropping six places after a touch from Oliver Bearman in Turn 3. But his smart and brawny display in the midfield gave his fans a reason to cheer again, in particular the pass around the outside of a fading Hamilton through the infield.
Alonso wasn’t rewarded with points in 12th, but at least he was fighting again. Competing again. And not just counting down the days until the start of 2027.
“The car was phenomenal today,” he said. “I think it has been the most competitive race. We were running with the Ferraris at one point in the race, now with the Mercedes in the last few laps. With much we lose on the straights, that means that we could be nearly one second faster than them…”
Loser: Cadillac
Seven days after shunting out of the Mexico Grand Prix with a suspension failure, Valtteri Bottas didn’t even make the start of the race in Brazil due to a cross-threaded wheel nut on the grid, which meant the team couldn’t remove his right-rear wheel.
Come on, man.
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