Of all the race tracks on the Formula 1 calendar to visit with the aim of taking a clean sweep of poles and wins in both the sprint and grand prix, Sao Paolo is probably the one you could rely on the least.
It is always circled in the calendar with “anything could happen” scribbled next to it. Over the years we have seen so many crazy things at Interlagos, led by the unpredictable weather and stirred up by the nature of the track. It would be foolish to say with any certainty what the result might be before the weekend.
And yet Lando Norris arrived full of confidence after his dominant Mexico win and stamped his authority over the weekend. His cause was helped by the underperformance of his two main title rivals on Friday and Saturday, which meant he didn’t have to race Oscar Piastri or Max Verstappen head-to-head.
In the latter case that was just as well, because Red Bull finally unlocked the potential of the car on race day – making big changes to the set up and fitting a new power unit – to allow Verstappen to put in a barnstorming drive from the enforced pitlane start to third at the flag, via a puncture along the way.
The Sao Paolo rain did not arrive anything like as forcefully as we have seen before and so another massive variable was removed for Norris.
The championship leader held his nerve and hit the bullseye. He opened up a 24-point gap on Piastri and is 49 points up on Verstappen with three grands prix, plus a sprint race, remaining.
Lando Norris, McLaren
Photo by: Simon Galloway / LAT Images via Getty Images
It’s amazing to think that Piastri had a 34-point lead over his team-mate after the Dutch GP in late August, and now it has swung to 24 points the other way. Since Monza Piastri has scored an average of just 9.5 points per race, while Norris is at an average rate of just over 19 points.
Next up is the gambling capital of the world, Las Vegas, so shall we make a few predictions?
The cold weather plus the improvement to the Mercedes car will put the Silver Arrows among the favourites. George Russell won there last year and Andrea Kimi Antonelli is now resembling a frontrunner. Red Bull will also be fast in Vegas. Of the three remaining races, it is likely the one where McLaren will struggle the most. These factors make it hard to imagine Piastri finding a way to take a significant bite out of Norris’ points lead unless the Englishman has a retirement.
Qatar and Abu Dhabi will then both be strong races for McLaren, while Qatar also features a sprint race. But if Norris holds his nerve in Vegas, it will require Piastri to be perfect in those final two race weekends and score the maximum 58 points to have any chance.
A great weekend for two rookies
If you were voting for ‘Rookie of the Year’ a month ago, you might say it was between Isack Hadjar and Gabriel Bortoleto. But in recent weeks former Formula 2 team-mates Antonelli and Oliver Bearman have really stepped up.
Antonelli scored his second podium and his best F1 result in second place. More significantly it was the first weekend where he has outclassed team-mate Russell, who is clearly in his peak years now and enjoying his best season in F1. I imagine Toto Wolff will have felt quietly satisfied that his gamble in promoting Antonelli is going to pay off and it’s very exciting for next year. Antonelli’s form, and the collapse of Lewis Hamilton’s, make it a real prospect that the teenager who replaced Hamilton might finish ahead of the seven-time champion in the standings. He’s now only 26 points behind him.
Lando Norris, McLaren, George Russell, Mercedes, Andrea Kimi Antonelli, Mercedes
Photo by: Rudy Carezzevoli / Getty Images
Meanwhile Bearman gave many frontrunners a scare with his pace in qualifying at Interlagos and did a superb job in the race to finish sixth. This backed up his fourth-place result in Mexico and showed that he is now fully on top of the experienced benchmark driver Esteban Ocon in the other car. The result put Haas right on the tail of Aston Martin in the fight for seventh in the constructors’ championship.
Hadjar did another solid job to bring home more points for Racing Bulls in eighth, just behind his team-mate Liam Lawson. It looks increasingly likely that Hadjar will move up to Red Bull next season while Arvid Lindblad will take one of the Racing Bulls seats. So Lawson needs to put everything he’s got in the show window now.
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