BRAZIL: The most exciting one yet.

NUMBER TWENTY ONE

I mean where do we even start with this one.

Absolute chaos.

No time to chat about the Sprint – basically McLaren P1 P2, Red Bull and Ferrari in the mix, Russell and Gasly up in the points too. That’ll do.

Qualifying. Postponed to Sunday morning. Takes hours. An incredible amount of rain and an incredible number of red flags. Both Williams, both Aston Martins, and Sainz all fly into various barriers and write themselves off. One of those red flags causes Verstappen to miss his fast lap and he’s out in Q2, with a 5 place grid penalty pushing him further down to P17.  The rest of the grid is interesting – Norris and Russell are front row followed by Tsunoda, Ocon, and Lawson (!). The rest slot in except for Sainz who’s basically had a brand-new car built so starts in the pit lane, and Albon whose car was so destroyed in qualifying it’s unfixable for the race.

Now, normally I’d group drivers or teams together and discuss performance – winners and losers, strengths and weaknesses etc. There is so much that happens to the pack as a whole in the race, I am simply going to have to run through it play by play.

‘The Pre-Start’

Blankets off their inters and they all set off for a formation lap, when all of a sudden Stroll decides to take his Aston for a spin on the grass. The car is beached, the start is aborted. Now we have a bit of contention – what does ‘aborted’ mean here? Do the cars sit back on the grid or take another formation lap. The former is instructed, but amongst the confusion Norris and the other frontrunners set off prematurely, leaving half the cars on the grid. That palaver goes under investigation post-race (it ends up as a fine), while mechanics flock to the grid to keep tyres warm ready for the restart. At this point Mercedes decide to fiddle with their tyre pressure whilst the tyres are still on the cars – this is a no no, and they too are hit with fines.

‘The Actual Start’

Finally, they begin. Russell takes pole off Norris immediately. Verstappen has a ridiculously impressive start and makes up seven places in one lap. Cold inters and increasingly heavy rain is a tricky combo, and cars are sliding about with little to no visibility. Bearman goes into the back of Colapinto and lands himself a 10 second penalty. Hamilton and Sainz are both struggling to keep their cars on track. Verstappen is somehow still climbing and finds himself in the battle for P3 alongside Tsunoda, Ocon and Leclerc. Lap 25 Ferrari make an early call and send Leclerc in to pit. A couple of laps later Hulkenberg beaches his Haas and a virtual safety car is called in.

‘Timing is Everything’

Virtual safety car = flurry of pit stops for the midfielders. Norris and Russell in front stay out an extra lap and come in just as the virtual safety car ends – bad timing. Norris and Russell drop down and now Ocon is leading, Verstappen P2 and Gasly P3 – all yet to pit. Then we get a brief safety car for the heavy rain, and THEN Colapinto has a big crash and the race is red flagged. The top 3 now get a free pit – very good timing. Cars sit in the pit lane, drivers have a wander, and Hulkenberg is black flagged out of the race – his earlier beaching saw stewards give his car a push before he rejoined the race – this is very much not allowed.

‘The Restart’

Colapinto’s Williams is cleared, and a rolling start is declared. The cars take 1 lap behind the safety car and they’re off. Lots of slipping and sliding. Norris goes wide and Russell gets past, Bearman is really struggling – at one point actually hitting a barrier yet somehow getting back on track. But it’s Sainz who gets it really wrong and crashes in Lap 40, causing yet another safety car.

‘The End’

Lap 43 and the safety car comes in. Verstappen gets a great restart and takes the lead off Ocon. Norris has a poor restart and slips down to P7 behind his teammate. Alonso has a wobble and slips to the bottom of the grid. Lap 46, McLaren gives the swap position order. It gets a bit hairy at the bottom of the points – Lawson, Perez, and Hamilton battle for P9 and P10, with Lawson and Perez touching wheels at one point.

The Results:

An incredible win for Verstappen, reminding us why he’s in that top spot. A double podium for Alpine which is, quite frankly, insane. Very well deserved. Russell and Leclerc come in next at P4 and P5, with the McLarens having a tough one just below at P6 and P8. RB have a great race – Tsunoda takes P7 and Lawson P9. Hamilton nabs the last point at P10, just ahead of Perez at P11. The 1 remaining Haas takes P12, followed by Bottas, Alonso and Zhou. The rest are non-finishers.

 A very tricky race that displayed immense skill from every single driver out there.

Now for a well-deserved break before Vegas.