Olá, MiniFans! After the S-Race, the qualifying session for the main race was a beacon of hope for many, but those who wanted it most didn’t reap good results. Neither Aston made it to Q3, when both had firmly settled in it on Friday, and Hamilton accompanied them alongside both Williams. However, there was a worse fate than theirs: Verstappen encountered such an undriveable car that not even his hands could make it go past Q1, condeming him to a pitlane start once the team decided it would be the better choice out of all the bad ones they had. Meanwhile, Norris repeated his pole position and Piastri saw one more car in between them, settling in fouth behind an Antonelli who had once again gotten a first row and an outstanding Leclerc.
The start was mostly clean during the first half of the track, with Antonelli not quite daring to divebomb into turn one. Norris easily defended with a good start on a harder tyre than the Mercedes, whereas his teammate had more trouble with Hadjar in the same situation tyre-wise, but managing to edge. out the RB. However, the calm wouldn’t last long. A crash from Bortoleto forced a safety car due to the car having stopped on track in turn 10, and race direction made a good decision for safety by making drivers take an variation of the curve (used in other track layouts) following the safety car to allow a faster and safer work from the track marshals. It was only during this time that Hamilton was seen with no front wing, a result of a few collisions with different drivers in his opening lap, the most notable Sainz at the very start and Colapinto, the latter incident being the culprilt of his lost wing.
Norris did the restart in a very similar way to that of the S-Race, but the spectacle came behind him. Antonelli’s reaction was slow, which allowed both Leclerc on the outside and Piastri on the inside to line up with him. The three wide ensemblke did not fit and Piastri ended up colliding with Antonelli, who in turn hit Leclerc in a way that broke his front left suspension and left the case of his tyre get away from him. Forced to retire, the slow Ferrari and his position on the asphalt runaway forced a short virtual safety car to get it behind the barriers safely as Antonelli was told his car looked fine by the team. In a needed move by Red Bull, they pitted Verstappen to get rid of his hards, which had a puncture, for a set of mediums, leaving the pits dead last.
When the virtual safety car was finally retired and the race was underway once again, Verstappen started to set fastest laps, maintaining a pace similar to the front of the race, proving that whatever setup changes the team had implemented, were working out nicely. As he was starting to complete his comeback, the investigations and penalties started to come out, with the race finally kind of settling down despite the still ongoing action. Tsunoda earned 10 seconds for hitting Stroll from behind, as did Piastri, deemed at fault in the first corner collision.
The first real stops (that is, not counting those who had been forced to pit or taken advantage of the VSC) came at around lap 20, pretty much only from those who had started on softs. Between his newly found pace and this, Verstappen easily climbed up to fourth, one stop in and in likely a similar strategy to the top dogs for the remainder of the race, as everyone was starting to truly figure out what strategy they were going to follow, in part due to the high degradation and the weird performance of the hardest compound.
The first to stop from the front was Norris, who was fitted with a soft, which clearly pointed to a second stop later down the line, as not even half of the race had gone by. Piastri’s conundrum was more difficult to solve: his tyres would probably do great with a bit of a change, but holding on meant less cars to overtake later on, as the ten-second penalty would really harm his chances. McLaren, in true McLaren fashion, opened up a line of communication about his opinion on a hard tyre they claimed had worked “not too bad” for the Aston Martin, while the green team had needed to call Alonso in before than expected, as it hadn’t worked the way they wanted it to. Piastri only told them the medium wasn’t feeling bad either at that point, indicating without words that he could still go for longer on his set.
Russell and Verstappen were the ones following through the stops, with the Brit going for a soft and the Dutch for a fresh set of mediums, as he had already used the hard for a few laps at the start. Piastri came in a handful of laps late for a set of softs as well, as Ferrari finally called Hamilton in to retire the car due to the damage sustained earlier, but way too late after having served the 5-second penalty he had been awarded for the collision with Colapinto. This left no red cars on the track as the team took a hit in the constructors’ championship, earning a total of zero points thanks to a double DNF.
Once all the first stops were finally over, Norris was still very comfortably leading, followed by the two Mercedes, helped by the the consequences of the early incident that doomed Piastri’s race and forced Leclerc out. Verstappen was still holding onto fourth (and the fastest lap), while Piastri was in fifth, not quite managing to cut down the distance to the Red Bull under three and a half seconds. The race was mostly settled, only a few scuffles here and there in the midfield, but the attention was at the front and what Verstappen might achieve.
Verstappen received an encouraging message over the radio, with GP telling him he was leading the race, but it didn’t last long. The team opted to get him a set of brand new softs they still had to go to the end, dropping him in fourth, 14 seconds from the lead and less than 6 away from Russell. The Dutch received the message that the red rubbers hadn’t been the best behaved through the weekend, and with that information, he set off in pursuit of the podium. Quickly and surely, the gap to the Mercedes decreased by tenths at a time until he was breathing down Russell’s neck as the ten laps to go message was displayed.
As soon as he saw the chance, Verstappen took it. Taking advantage of the DRS, did what Russell was not expecting: he took the outside line, pulling a masterful overtake in turn 1, keeping the inside on turn 2 and making the pass stick cleanly. He didn’t waste any time after securing third, starting to chase Antonelli for second. Behind him, Piastri’s goal was to do something similar, but was finally unable, not quite catching Russell and only managing to get in his DRS zone, but never close enough to attempt an overtake. Verstappen, however, encroached on Antonelli, appearing in his rearview mirrors as an unstoppable force and even giving it try after try in the last lap, even after sliding around due to his very used softs not exactly being up to the task required of them by the end of their life, eventually needed to concede by just three tenths.
Interlagos is a track that never disappoints. The way that it is built, added to the weather always being a bit unstable, promises a show that never fails to entertain. Sometimes we get some extra sides, like Verstappen starting from the pitlane and promising a show that he fully delivered, no question asked and no mercy taken on the rest of the grid. The Dutchman was the flagship of the race, finishing in third after pulling some masterful moves on the rest of the grid an only being stopped from finishing higher by a set of very used and abused soft tyres. Piastri’s spark seems to keep getting duller, while Norris has finally started pulling the weight of someone fighting for a title, but Verstappen has proven once again that he still can’t be fully ruled out.
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