The 2024 Brazilian Grand Prix witnessed Max Verstappen deliver a champion-like performance that put him on the cusp of a fourth consecutive Formula 1 world title. 

Verstappen won from 17th as a disastrous qualifying saw him finish 12th, before an engine change penalty dropped him five places. 

But the Red Bull driver delivered a masterclass in the wet to extend his lead over second-placed Lando Norris to 62 points with 86 left available. 

Nobody has won a grand prix from so far back since the 2005 Japanese GP, so where does Verstappen’s win stand in the history books?

22nd — John Watson, 1983 United States Grand Prix West

John Watson, McLaren MP4-1C Ford

Photo by: Rainer W. Schlegelmilch / Motorsport Images

John Watson holds F1’s record for winning a grand prix from the furthest back on the grid, having started 22nd at the 1983 United States GP West.

It was the second round of the season and anger had already kicked off pre-qualifying as teams and drivers were unhappy at the slightly modified Long Beach circuit, which had bumps in the parts that connected the old and new layout. 

Teams were therefore concerned about their suspensions but the problems went deeper for Watson, who struggled with his Michelin tyres in qualifying. He wasn’t the only big name to suffer a poor session though, as team-mate Niki Lauda lined up one place behind.

But with a full load of fuel onboard, both McLaren cars were able to quickly generate heat into their tyres and after Lauda overtook Watson at race start, the pair progressed through the field in tandem as their pace was unstoppable. 

By lap 28, they were third and fourth before Watson overtook Lauda at the end of Shoreline Drive. At this point, the Northern Irishman was 20 seconds off the front which saw a thrilling battle between leader Jacques Laffite and Riccardo Patrese.

However, Patrese slid off as he attempted an overtake, allowing the McLarens through before Watson and Lauda quickly moved past Laffite, who had problems with his tyres.

So McLaren was now remarkably 1-2 and as Lauda struggled with leg cramp in the closing stages, he failed to challenge Watson who claimed a sensational victory that was the fifth and final win of his F1 career — which Autosport also listed as his greatest race.

19th — Bill Vukovich,1954 Indianapolis 500 

Bill Vukovich, Kurtis-Kraft

Photo by: Indianapolis Motor Speedway

Though not technically classified as a grand prix, the Indianapolis 500 was still part of the F1 calendar from 1950 to 1960. The 1954 edition saw reigning winner Bill Vukovich start 19th having struggled in qualifying with his now two-year-old car.

His rise up the order was not as rapid as Watson’s in Long Beach either, as Vukovich first took the lead on lap 61 before very quickly losing it by pitting. But he worked his way through the pack again before reclaiming first on lap 92 until dropping back once more through the pits. 

Yet the two-time Indy 500 winner finally took the lead for good on lap 150, before setting a then-record of a 130.84mph average race speed. But Vukovich tragically died at the Indy 500 the following year after a four-car collision whilst he was leading on lap 57. 

Race winner Rubens Barrichello, Ferrari F1 2000

Photo by: Motorsport Images

The headlines were often stolen by Michael Schumacher when the seven-time world champion partnered Rubens Barrichello at Ferrari, yet in 2000 the Brazilian grabbed them at his team-mate’s home race. 

That year’s German GP witnessed Barrichello suffer an electrical problem in qualifying leaving him 18th on the grid, but a great start and faultless strategy had him fighting for victory.

The Ferrari driver climbed to 10th on lap one, during which Schumacher retired after a collision with Giancarlo Fisichella, before gaining another five positions over the following five tours in his rapid F1-2000.

Barrichello continued his superior pace and began setting successive fastest laps as he eventually caught up with Pedro de la Rosa, before overtaking him for fourth on lap 12. 

On the 15th lap, the Brazilian was into the podium positions after a move on Jarno Trulli at Hockenheim’s Jim Clark chicane before becoming the first driver to pit two tours later. 

Other drivers opted to pit during the lap 25 safety car, caused by a track protestor, before switching tyres again when rain began falling on lap 35. Yet Barrichello stayed out, as he and Ferrari believed the rain was not enough to fit wet tyres despite it only getting heavier.

But Barrichello held on and eventually took the maiden victory of his F1 career to become the first Brazilian to win a grand prix since Ayrton Senna at Adelaide in 1993. 

17th — John Watson, 1982 Detroit Grand Prix

John Watson, Eddie Cheever, Didier Pironi

Photo by: Motorsport Images

It was only a year before his incredible win in Long Beach that Watson had produced a similarly spectacular comeback drive to victory in the United States. 

At the 1982 Detroit GP, Watson was caught out by a qualifying collision involving Chico Serra’s Fittipaldi leaving the McLaren driver 17th on the grid.

But that year Watson, who finished third in the championship, was in fine form and rapidly progressed through the field in Detroit before taking second after an incredible lap 30 where he overtook Didier Pironi, Lauda and Eddie Cheever. 

By that point, Watson was 15s behind leader Keke Rosberg but he halved the deficit within two laps and eventually overtook as that year’s world champion started to struggle with his tyres.

As Rosberg eventually fell behind Cheever and Pironi, Watson took a comfortable second and final victory of the season.

17th — Kimi Raikkonen, 2005 Japanese Grand Prix

Race winner Kimi Raikkonen, McLaren

Photo by: Steven Tee / Motorsport Images

The last driver to win an F1 race from 17th before Verstappen was Kimi Raikkonen at the 2005 Japanese GP. 

After the early dominance of Fernando Alonso and Renault that year, McLaren came strong towards the end having won five straight heading into the Japan penultimate round.

The run looked in doubt though when McLaren suffered a disastrous one-shot qualifying session that only became wetter as time went on, resulting in the British squad coming 17th and 18th.

In fact, Raikkonen and team-mate Juan Pablo Montoya weren’t the only front-runners to qualify towards the back, as Alonso was 16th with Schumacher in 14th.

But conditions were dry on race day at Suzuka allowing the pace of the Renault, McLaren and Ferrari to shine through, in which Raikkonen overtook the two world champions through the pits.

By lap 30, the McLaren driver was fourth but 17s behind leader Fisichella with 23 tours remaining, yet quickly cut that gap while climbing up to second as Jenson Button and Mark Webber both pitted.

With Raikkonen and Fisichella both pitting again before the end of the race, the gap was nine seconds with eight laps left, but the Renault was struggling on its tyres so the deficit only ever reduced. 

It culminated in Raikkonen taking the lead down the start-finish straight on the final lap to give McLaren its sixth, consecutive victory and the Finn’s seventh of 2005 helping him finish runner-up to Alonso in the championship. 

17th — Max Verstappen, 2024 Brazilian Grand Prix

Max Verstappen, Red Bull Racing RB20, 1st position, takes the chequered flag

Photo by: Lubomir Asenov / Motorsport Images

The 2024 Brazilian GP is the weekend Verstappen all-but confirmed himself as a four-time world champion. Heading into the grand prix, he was very much on the back foot as title rival Norris led a McLaren 1-2 in the sprint race while Verstappen crossed the line in third but was demoted to fourth due to a virtual safety car infringement. 

His misery was compounded in qualifying, delayed until the Sunday morning due to heavy thunderstorms in Sao Paulo, as Verstappen only finished 12th. That’s because he had to abort his final run in Q2 due to Lance Stroll crashing at Turn 3 which initially caused a yellow flag that eventually turned red, while Norris ended up on pole. 

But Verstappen has a reputation of excelling in wet conditions and he delivered on that in the grand prix, by enjoying a fantastic start where he gained seven positions across the opening two laps after finding grip where others could not. The Red Bull driver was simply on another level and he quickly picked off one car after another, Turn 1 being a popular overtaking spot, to end up sixth by lap 22.

Yet with tyres starting to wear out, and a lap 28 VSC, teams had the dilemma if to pit or not. Ahead of Verstappen, Leclerc, Norris and leader George Russell all came in for a fresh set, but that proved to be the wrong decision as Franco Colapinto’s crash on lap 32 caused a red flag.

This meant the new leader Esteban Ocon, Verstappen and Pierre Gasly, who completed the top three, could all switch tyres without a cost as they fitted new intermediates for the restart. Ocon kept his lead, but then Carlos Sainz’s crash on lap 40 caused a safety car period in which Verstappen immediately overtook the Alpine driver at the restart to eventually take his eighth victory of 2024.

The rain-affected Brazilian Grand Prix delivered what was perhaps the biggest shock podium of the Formula 1 season so far.

Max Verstappen’s charge from 17th on the grid to the front had been anticipated by very few people, and it marked his first triumph since the Spanish Grand Prix back in June.

Right behind the Dutchman were the two Alpine cars of Esteban Ocon and Pierre Gasly, who scored more points for the squad in a single afternoon than they have all season so far.

The joy of the top three was in contrast to the struggles that other teams faced in the wet conditions, with recent benchmark squads McLaren and Ferrari struggling with a lack of pace.

World championship contender Lando Norris was fighting front-locking problems, while Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc described his SF-24 as pretty horrendous to drive.

«We were just not fast enough,» declared the Monegasque after the race. «The car was extremely difficult to drive and very, very pointy, very digital, very oversteery.»

While Verstappen and the two Alpines were certainly given a helping hand to their result by the red flag that handed them a free tyre change, it would be wrong to say that this was a fluke result won by a roll of the dice.

Even after the red flag resumption, the trio were the fastest cars on track, showing that the end result was certainly more down to how the relative cars performed in the wet.

It is a well-known phenomenon that some cars are more suitable for wet conditions than dry – as multiple elements come together to help drivers overcome deficiencies that are exposed in the dry.

Pierre Gasly, Alpine

Photo by: Alpine

One factor that almost certainly helped Alpine was the fact that the wet masked one of its main weaknesses: engine performance. With the tricky conditions more about managing throttle input than simply having the most power, the squad was on a much more level playing field than it is in the dry.

But one other interesting element popped up as a factor that could explain the shuffling of the order in the wet — and that is the aero impact of wet-weather tyres.

The current generation of ground-effect cars are very sensitive to ride height, and just a couple of millimetres of difference in ground clearance can have a pretty big impact in terms of downforce levels – with all the juicy performance coming as close to the track as possible.

So with the diameter of the inter tyre that most teams use being 5mm greater with its tread pattern than the slick (725mm compared to 720mm), there is a direct impact on where the car platform is running compared to where it sits on a slick.

And it must be remembered that teams were already finding that they could not run as close to the ground as they would have liked in Brazil because of the Interlagos bumps, so those cars already falling out of the ideal window will have been further pushed away by running on inters.

But it is not just the minuscule ride-height impact that can make a difference when it comes to the aero impact of the tyres, because sidewall stiffness is perhaps an even more important element.

How the tyre deforms under cornering load, and when downforce is applied, has a big impact on the car’s aerodynamics, which is why teams put a lot of effort into ensuring that their cars are optimised to take the changing shape of tyres into account.

That is why wind tunnel tyres are designed to replicate in perfect scale the sidewall deformation that real-life tyres have.

A change of sidewall stiffness and a subtle impact on ride height is certainly more than enough to alter the aero map of a car, potentially shifting the balance and making what is a benign car in the dry quite pointy in the wet.

Haas team principal Ayao Komatsu, whose own team seemed to be worse off on the inter than the slick, said it was not a new phenomenon for his squad – as Spa earlier this year had exposed problems of his car losing rear downforce when put on to rain-weather tyres.

Pirelli tyres on the car of Oscar Piastri, McLaren MCL38

Photo by: Steven Tee / Motorsport Images

«The amount of aero balance we need to take out just shows the rear of the car is weak on the intermediate tyres, which is a new problem this year,» he said.

«You design the car with your wind tunnel tyres for dry conditions, obviously. Then, I can’t remember when we first ran the inters or wet, but straight away we lost so much stability.»

On the flip side, the Red Bulls and Alpine certainly seemed to be a step ahead of the opposition in the wet.

What the data says

While teams do not yet have answers as to whether the aero influence of the tyres was decisive in Brazil, analysis of lap times definitely points to some shift in trends.

Most interesting is that the Brazilian GP weekend, with its dry sprint event and wet rain race, offered us a snapshot of performance differences across the two conditions.

And while qualifying comparisons are not totally indicative, because some cars did not show their full potential in the same conditions as others, they do at least show how some teams moved around in the pecking order – with Alpine and RB certainly looking relatively better in the wet and Ferrari dropping back.

The below results show the fastest car from each team in Q3.

Sprint qualifying result — Dry

Qualifying — Wet

But a more accurate gauge of the pace of the cars, and how things moved around from the dry to the wet, comes from race pace.

Looking at the fastest car from each team, based on clean racing laps — so not including pitstops nor restarts — we get the following data set.

Sprint — Dry

Race — Wet

Red Bull and Mercedes’ pace was certainly much improved in the wet relative to its rivals, while McLaren and Ferrari fell back.

And Ferrari’s was perhaps the biggest drop-off, as Alpine and RB proved to be quicker over the stints.