Lando Norris converted pole position to a win at the Brazilian Grand Prix leading Kimi Antonelli and Max Verstappen extending his lead in the Driver’s Championship. Lando had a firm grasp of the entire weekend while his nearest rival slipped again. Can Oscar turn it around in Las Vegas?
Win
WinA big win for Lando Norris who dominated the entire weekend and this is the type of performance some were wondering if Lando had it in him. He seemed deflated after the Dutch GP but he’s turned his luck and pace around since then to charge to the championship lead with a 24-point lead.
A big win for Max Verstappen who took his Red Bull from pit lane to P2 minimizing the damage and keeping his bid for the driver’s championship alive for 2025. The team had a terrific strategy and Max delivered yet another Verstappen performance.
A huge win for Kimi Antonelli for his best result ever in F1 securing P2 and holding off Max Verstappen which is not easy to do. Kimi looked good all weekend long and didn’t put a foot wrong.
The other wins were really a collective who all had a terrific weekend and great result with Ollie Bearman (P6), Liam Lawson (P7), Isack Hadjar (P8), Nico Hulkenberg (P9) and Pierre Gasly (P10). A great result for all of them and was really good to see Pierre and Nico on top of their game all weekend long. Ollie is giving Kimi and Isack a run for their money in the rookie of the year race too!
Fail
FailA fail for Oscar Piastri who had the issue in the Sprint and is losing ground to Lando in the title race. Lot’s will be argued about the 10s penalty he got for his clash with Kimi. Was it the right call or just a racing incident?
A fail for Ferrari with a dual-DNF. A brutal weekend for both Lewis Hamilton and Charles Leclerc who both had incidents forcing their early retirement from the race. The DNF’s dropped Ferrari to 4th in the constructor’s championship behind Red Bull and Mercedes and that’s millions and millions of dollars lost in prize money.
Not really a fail for Williams because I think they did a good job of getting the cars more competitive over the weekend but they, like Aston Martin, looked on for points this weekend but couldn’t pull it off.
WTH
WTHNot quite sure why Alpine signed Franco Colapinto for 2026 apart from his backers upping the amount of support they brought to the team.
Poor Yuki, he’s become an also-ran at this point and that’s a shame.
MARIO ISOLA – PIRELLI DIRECTOR OF MOTORSPORT
“Interlagos always springs surprises and delivers fantastic racing. Last year it was the rain to provide the variable that enhanced the show; this year we saw a wide variety of race strategies, which – combined with the unique characteristics of this track – encouraged even more overtaking than normal.
It was impressive to see Max Verstappen starting from the pitlane and getting onto the podium; the reigning world champion never stops amazing us. Congratulations also to young Kimi Antonelli, who managed to defend his second place bravely, and of course to Lando Norris, who sealed a great win from pole.
As we expected the soft and the medium were favoured, and a two-stop strategy was the most common. The degradation levels on the tyres, combined with some early pit stops to take advantage of the neutralisation periods at the start of the race, probably pushed the teams towards that choice, putting the emphasis on the two softer compounds.
The hard didn’t really come into play, as it tended to slide a lot on a surface that had been ‘reset’ by the rain the morning. The pit stop windows were different for each driver, creating performance differentials that helped overtaking and gave us a great show as a result.
The only two drivers who finished the grand prix with just one stop obviously had to work their tyres harder than the others, who experienced wear and graining levels that were lower than yesterday. Nonetheless, Liam Lawson and Nico Hulkenberg showed today that a one-stopper was also a perfectly valid strategy. And it’s been a long time since we saw such a wide variety of strategies using different compounds, from one to three stops, end up scoring points at the end of a dry race.”
Brazilian GP Results:
| Pos. | No. | Driver | Team | Laps | Time / Retired | Pts. |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 4 | Lando Norris | McLaren | 71 | 1:32:01.596 | 25 |
| 2 | 12 | Kimi Antonelli | Mercedes | 71 | +10.388s | 18 |
| 3 | 1 | Max Verstappen | Red Bull Racing | 71 | +10.750s | 15 |
| 4 | 63 | George Russell | Mercedes | 71 | +15.267s | 12 |
| 5 | 81 | Oscar Piastri | McLaren | 71 | +15.749s | 10 |
| 6 | 87 | Oliver Bearman | Haas F1 Team | 71 | +29.630s | 8 |
| 7 | 30 | Liam Lawson | Racing Bulls | 71 | +52.642s | 6 |
| 8 | 6 | Isack Hadjar | Racing Bulls | 71 | +52.873s | 4 |
| 9 | 27 | Nico Hulkenberg | Kick Sauber | 71 | +53.324s | 2 |
| 10 | 10 | Pierre Gasly | Alpine | 71 | +53.914s | 1 |
| 11 | 23 | Alexander Albon | Williams | 71 | +54.184s | 0 |
| 12 | 31 | Esteban Ocon | Haas F1 Team | 71 | +54.696s | 0 |
| 13 | 55 | Carlos Sainz | Williams | 71 | +55.420s | 0 |
| 14 | 14 | Fernando Alonso | Aston Martin | 71 | +55.766s | 0 |
| 15 | 43 | Franco Colapinto | Alpine | 71 | +57.777s | 0 |
| 16 | 18 | Lance Stroll | Aston Martin | 71 | +58.247s | 0 |
| 17 | 22 | Yuki Tsunoda | Red Bull Racing | 71 | +69.176s | 0 |
| NC | 44 | Lewis Hamilton | Ferrari | 37 | DNF | 0 |
| NC | 16 | Charles Leclerc | Ferrari | 5 | DNF | 0 |
| NC | 5 | Gabriel Bortoleto | Kick Sauber | 0 | DNF | 0 |
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Small typo in your article, P3 for verstappen not p2. Other than that, I have a question: do you think it’s possible that piatris problems stem from mark Webber losing his cool, angry media outbursts, stoking aussi media and infecting piastri away from his normal cool headedness?
By the way, YouTube TV lost ESPN, so to see the race I watched it in Swiss German on Swiss TV with vpn. Actually the commentary was more intelligent.
The problem with the current rules is that piastri did everything right and Antonelli did quite a bit wrong but Piastri WAS technically at fault. If he just hadnt braked at all he would have been correct. That’s not the stewards’ fault, but it is wrong.