Max Verstappen dampened Lando Norris’ title charge with a brilliant drive from P17 to take victory at the Brazilian Grand Prix.
Let’s take a look at how each team fared in Sao Paulo.
Red Bull’s weekend began less than ideally, with neither driver able to better the McLarens in the Sprint Race. They had it all to prove in Sunday’s main race. Qualifying, which had been suspended to Sunday morning due to bad weather, went worse than expected. The Red Bull drivers could not get out of Q2, with Max Verstappen achieving P12 (which was demoted to P17 on the grid due to a penalty) and Sergio Perez in P13. Sunday’s race was a mixed bag for the team; on the one hand, Perez only managed to gain one place, finishing outside of the points in P11, on the other hand, Verstappen had a stellar race. The Dutch driver managed to win the race by almost 20 seconds. This strengthens his title defence significantly in the lead up to the final triple header.
Alpine had their best weekend for a long time, achieving second and third place. While many put this down to the tumultuous nature of the race – which had several safety cars, virtual safety cars and red flags – this does not diminish this achievement for the team. They have, in fact, almost tripled their points tally in a single afternoon, leaping to P6 in the Constructor’s Championship and thus gaining key funds in prize money for the coming season. Esteban Ocon looked close to victory, keeping calm whilst leading the race for an amount of time, but was overtaken by Verstappen at a restart following the end of a Safety Car period. Pierre Gasly also gained two points in the Sprint Race on Saturday. Amazing performance from the Alpine team!
Mercedes raced to a decent points haul in Brazil. George Russell had a much better weekend than Lewis Hamilton. Russell got points in the Sprint Race, qualified second on the grid and drove to take fourth place in the main race on Sunday. He arguably could have finished further up the field, but a safety car came at an inopportune time for his race strategy. Hamilton, despite a poor qualifying, salvaged a point in Sunday’s race. He finished outside of the points in the Sprint Race. While their weekend could have gone better, wet weather and Safety Cars brings chance and irregularity to races, which they were on the wrong side of this time.
Charles Leclerc drove his Ferrari from sixth on the grid to a fifth place finish. He also finished on the podium in third in the Sprint Race. Carlos Sainz began the weekend well, gaining valuable points in the Sprint. However, the Spaniard’s race ended abruptly when he crashed on Lap 38. This crash triggered a Safety Car, after Sainz spun coming out of Turn Eight and landed harshly in the barriers. While this ended his race, everyone was glad that he was okay following such a big crash.
McLaren’s weekend began brilliantly, with a 1-2 in the Sprint Race, giving them valuable points in both the Drivers’ and Constructors’ Championships. The main race, however, did not go their way. Both cars finished in the points, Lando Norris in sixth and Oscar Piastri in eighth. With this, Norris lost the momentum he had built in his title challenge. After this result, Norris remains in second position in the Drivers’ Championship, but closer to Leclerc in third place, than Verstappen in first. McLaren will have to improve and make sure Norris finishes in front of Verstappen if they wish to remain in the running for the Drivers’ Championship title. They remain in first position in the Constructors’ Championship.
RB gave us a few surprises over the course of the weekend. Yuki Tsunoda drove excellently in the wet conditions to a third place start on the grid. Liam Lawson followed closely to achieve fifth place on the grid. This excited fans, showing the positive side of the unpredictability that comes with wet conditions. In the race, both drivers finished in the points, with Tsunoda in seventh and Lawson in ninth. This performance brings them close to their current Constructors’ Championship rivals Haas.
Haas remain in the same position following this weekend. Oliver Bearman took the place of Kevin Magnussen who was out with illness. Bearman could only reach P12 in the conditions. Nico Hulkenburg had an eventful weekend, but unfortunately not a positive one. In the main race, he did not finish, and was in fact disqualified after crashing and being found to have used the help of the marshals to bring his car back on track. The American team will hope for better results going forward if they wish to maintain seventh in the Constructor’s Championship standings.
Both Stake Sauber cars finished the race, but delivered a performance typical of them as of late. Neither came close to points, finishing in 13th and 15th. Zhou Guanyu, who finished 15th was the last qualified finisher of the race. He also made four pitstops, the most of any driver. Valtteri Bottas slipped two positions from P11, where he qualified on the grid to his final position. It looks unlikely that this team will score at all this season.
Fernando Alonso complained of severe back pain due to excessive bouncing of his car during the latter stages of the race. He ended the race in P14 after qualifying in P9. His teammate, Lance Stroll, had an odd incident on the Formation Lap which ended his race before it even began. This triggered an even more odd series of events at the start, eventually leading to an aborted start. Much confusion ensued as the restart procedure was botched by many drivers in the field. This led to fines for some after the race.
Both Williams cars crashed, although at different points in the weekend. While the two drivers crashed in Qualifying, Alex Albon’s crash was too much for the engineers to fix before the start of the race, meaning he did not start. Franco Colapinto crashed on Lap 32, colliding heavily with the wall and mangling the left hand side of his car. Williams remain in P9 in the Constructors’ Championship, a position they seem to safely hold at this time.
Now we have a couple of weeks off from racing following this triple header, before the next one. Las Vegas up next.
Written by Alexandra.
Featured Image Credit: bbc.com
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