Olá São Paulo!
This week F1 moves further south for race two of the triple header. We’re in Brazil for the 2021 São Paulo Grand Prix (formerly Brazilian Grand Prix). After a very mature performance in Mexico, Verstappen comes into this weekend 19 points ahead of Hamilton in the championship. Verstappen has strung together some fantastic races this season and is slowly extending his lead. He is not in the clear though, and we all know Hamilton is relentless. Neither driver will be giving up in this battle any time soon.
In the team championship, Red Bull have closed their gap to Mercedes to just one point as a result of Bottas finishing outside of the points in Mexico, while both Red Bull drivers finished on the podium. Another factor that has pushed Red Bull closer to the lead in the constructors is Perez achieving his third consecutive podium finish. Since confirmation came out that Perez will be staying at Red Bull next year, he has been on fire. It’s as if knowing where his future lies has unlocked his confidence. Red Bull will be looking to overtake Mercedes this weekend to put them in the best position to win their first constructors title since 2013. Ferrari have overtaken McLaren for third place in the constructors battle. They now have a 13.5 point lead over the papaya team after finishing fifth and sixth in Mexico, while McLaren only scored one point for Norris finishing tenth.
The midfield battle is getting really tight now, with Alpine and AlphaTauri being equal on points in the fight for fifth. Alfa Romeo gained some more points this weekend, but not enough to put them ahead of Williams. They sit ninth on the leaderboard. Right at the bottom is Haas, who are still pointless, despite Mazepin having a chance to get into the points in Mexico. He ran in 11th place for a few laps after the safety car.
Last Time at the Brazilian Grand Prix…
The last Brazilian Grand Prix was held in 2019, having been cancelled in 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic. By the time we got to Brazil two years ago, the championship had already been won. That’s not to say that the drivers had stopped trying, they are racing drivers after all; they live to race and they provided spectators with a riveting event. Many of the midfield teams were still fighting for constructors championship positions.
2019 saw Verstappen get his second career pole position at Interlagos, it was also his first time starting the Brazilian Grand Prix in the top 3. Halfway through Q3, he had pipped pole off of Vettel by about eight thousandths of a second. He later improved the margin to about one tenth. Mercedes locked out the second row. Leclerc had originally qualified fourth but would serve a ten place grid penalty the next day. Albon, Gasly, Grosjean, Raikkonen and Magnussen also participated in Q3.
When the lights went out on the Sunday, Vettel had a better launch than Verstappen but Verstappen regained his lead before the first corner and remained there. Hamilton overtook Vettel into Turn 1 for second place. The positions at this end of the grid remained the same until the drivers started pitting. Of the top three, Hamilton was the first to box, attempting an undercut on Verstappen on Lap 21. Red Bull had no option but to cover off the undercut on the following lap. The Red Bull pit crew gave Verstappen a 1.9 second pit stop and he was looking set to come out a few positions ahead of Hamilton. Verstappen’s pit exit was compromised though when Williams released Kubica into his path, nearly causing a collision and putting Verstappen behind Hamilton when he finally made it back onto the track. Max eventually overtook Lewis on the next lap.
Bottas retired his car on Lap 52 out of 71 due to an engine issue which caused smoke to pummel from the back and initiating a safety car to retrieve his vehicle. Both Hamilton and Verstappen had their second pit stop during the safety car period. Once the safety car went back into the pits, Hamilton had control of the restart. He chose to get going again along the start/finish straight which ended up being a costly mistake, as Verstappen used the opportunity to get a tow into Turn 1 where they went wheel-to-wheel. By the second turn, Verstappen was in front, where he would remain for the last eleven laps of the race. In the restart, Albon had also made it into the podium positions.
Lap 66 saw both Ferraris retire after racing each other ended in a collision and damage to both cars. Another safety car was deployed. Racing would resume shortly. On Lap 70, Albon was on track to finish second place and score his first F1 podium when Hamilton went to move into a gap and spun him around. Albon would finish the race in 14th.
Verstappen finished the race P1, Gasly P2 (providing us with the iconic audio of him screaming), Hamilton P3. Hamilton would later receive a 5 second penalty for his incident with Albon and be pushed down to seventh, moving Sainz into the final podium position (though he didn’t actually get to participate in the podium ceremony). Sainz had started the race in P20 and drove a perfect race to end up on the podium.
Raikkonen crossed the line fifth, Giovinazzi finished sixth and Ricciardo finished seventh but all three of them were moved up a position following Hamilton’s penalty. Norris, Perez and Kvyat completed the points positions. Magnussen, Russell, Grosjean, Albon, Hulkenberg and Kubica all finished outside of the top ten. Hulkenberg would have finished in 12th place but was slapped with a 5 second penalty, post-race, for overtaking under safety car conditions. Bottas, Stroll, Leclerc and Vettel all did not finish the race.
The Finer Details…
Autódromo José Carlos Pace, better known as Interlagos, plays host to the São Paulo Grand Prix and has done since the first instalment in 1972. The circuit’s original name, Interlagos, comes from the name of the region it resides in, meaning “between lakes.” The name was officially changed to its current name in 1985. José Carlos Pace was a Brazilian formula one driver who tragically passed away in 1977 in a plane crash. Pace only won one race in his career, the 1975 Brazilian Grand Prix, his home race.
Much like the Mexican Grand Prix, the first Formula One race in Brazil was a non-championship event, typical of motorsports at the time. The 1972 Grand Prix was a test and exhibition to convince the FIA that the circuit and the event's organisers would be able to hold Grand Prix’s in the future. They were successful in their bid and the first championship event was held the next year.
The first three Brazilian Grand Prix were all won by São Paulo natives; Emerson Fittipaldi won the first two, and the aforementioned José Carlos Pace won the third. Alain Prost is the driver who has been most successful at the Brazilian Grand Prix, though 5 of his 6 victories in Brazil were at the Jacarepaguá circuit in Rio de Janeiro, where the Brazilian Grand Prix was held while the organisers at Interlagos worked on improving the safety of their circuit.
The Brazilian Grand Prix returned to Interlagos in 1990. The track layout has remained the same since its return. Autódromo José Carlos Pace is 4.309km in length. This anti-clockwise track has 15 corners, 10 to the left and 5 to the right. The drivers will have to complete 71 laps of the track to reach the total race distance of 305.909km. The track is complete with 2 DRS zones, the first is between Turn 3 and 4, the second begins just before Turn 15 and ends at Turn 1. The circuit boasts long corners, rather than tight ones, similar to Zandvoort. These long, wide corners will provide many overtaking opportunities for the drivers. The run up to turn one from the starting grid is quite short, so having the quickest reaction time and better acceleration when the lights go out is key.
At the end of 2020, Formula One announced that the Brazilian Grand Prix would remain at Interlagos until 2025 with a new promoter and under its new name, ‘São Paulo Grand Prix.’ This contract was then suspended by a judge earlier this year due to a challenge via public petition after it was revealed how much the city would be paying each year to hold the Grand Prix, USD $3.65 million. Local councillor, Rubens Nunes, tweeted “F1 is important for São Paulo and for Brazil - I’m a fan - but that does not authorise the city to enter into contracts without a bid, under secrecy and with a company without ‘expertise’ in the area, created a few days ago for this.”
Quick Facts
Valtteri Bottas holds the lap record at this circuit (1:10.540, set in 2018).
Alain Prost holds the record for most race wins (6) at the Brazilian Grand Prix.
McLaren have been the most successful constructor at the Brazilian Grand Prix with 12 wins, the most recent being in 2012.
Four current drivers have won at Interlagos; Raikkonen (one win), Vettel (three wins), Hamilton (two wins) and Verstappen (one win).
Sprint Format
The controversial sprint qualifying returns this weekend. We last saw this format in Monza, two months ago. So here’s a quick refresher.
Sprint qualifying switches up the whole weekend. Thursday remains as media day, so you can still catch the press conferences then.
Free Practice 1 is still the first session of the weekend, but Free Practice 2 is replaced with Quali. This is the usual qualifying session but instead of determining the starting grid positions for Sunday, it gives us the starting grid for the sprint qualifying that takes place on the Saturday.
The first session on Saturday is where FP2 was moved to. A few hours later, the drivers race for 30 minutes in the sprint qualifying session to determine the starting grid for Sunday’s race.
The top 3 in the sprint race also gain championship points. 3 points for first, 2 for second, 1 for third.
Last time there was a sprint qualifying, in Italy, the starting grid for the main race was all mixed up from the usual. While Bottas had won the sprint race, he had a grid-penalty for an engine change, putting Verstappen on pole on Sunday with Ricciardo for company on the front row. Norris started third, with Hamilton starting P4. Norris had done a fantastic job in the sprint race to get in front of and then keep Hamilton behind him to earn his P3 starting position . Ricciardo overtook Verstappen at the first corner and kept the lead for the whole race, other than when he went in for a pit stop. A crash between Verstappen and Hamilton moved Norris up to second. McLaren went on to get their iconic 1-2, and the team’s first win since 2012.
While there were other factors such as track design, penalties and crashes that contributed to the result, McLaren wouldn’t have been able to achieve their success that weekend if it weren’t for the Sprint Qualifying putting them as high on the grid as they were.
This begs the question, could we see a similar situation this weekend, where a team other than Red Bull or Mercedes dominate the race due to the grid being mixed up?
Another thing to note is that each weekend that there has been a sprint race, Verstappen and Hamilton collide in the main race on Sunday. At Silverstone, Verstappen ended up in the barrier at 51G after contact with Hamilton, and in Monza, Hamilton ended up with Verstappen’s car quite literally on his head. They’ll be wanting to avoid contact this time around because a DNF could severely damage either driver's chance of winning the championship.
You don’t want to miss out on any of the action this weekend. See below for session times.
When To Watch:
This weekend sees the return of sprint qualifying. There will be no Free Practice 3.
(FRIDAY) FP1 commences at 12:30 - 13:30 local time (15:30 - 16:30 BST).
(FRIDAY) Qualifying moves to Friday at 16:00 - 17:00 local time (19:00 - 20:00 BST).
(SATURDAY) Teams have their final session to collect their free practice data at 12:00 - 13:00 local time (15:00 - 16:00 BST).
(SATURDAY) The sprint race/qualifying returns at 16:30 - 17:00 local time (19:30 - 20:00 BST).
(SUNDAY) We race for the first time in Brazil since 2019 at 14:00 local time (17:00 BST).
(All times collected and calculated from the official Formula 1 website)
(Information for this post uses previous race data collected from the internet and official sources. No copyright intended)
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