Max Verstappen is still the very best driver on the grid. Today’s win in the pouring rain in Sao Paulo solidified that he is still king of the Grand Prix Jungle. Today he won his eighth Grand Prix race this year. He has podiumed twelve total races this season.
In Review.
McLaren and Ferrari have closed the once significant gap to Red Bull. Lando Norris has podiumed twelve races and won three. Lando has been pushing Verstappen all season long.
McLaren and Ferrari broke the Red Bull ceiling after the Barcelona race. After Barcelona it seemed that Mercedes had made a significant leap as each driver won the next two races. Then McLaren won four out of the next eight races while Ferrari won three in the same time span.
McLaren appears to be field the best car on the grid at the moment, however they lack consistency from their drivers. Ferrari has fared better then McLaren at the longer tracks with more straight-aways. Neither car has solidified their dominance in large part because their drivers appear to lack focus at times.
Red Bull’s lack of pace has frustrated Verstappen throughout the middle part of this year’s season. Still, he has managed to keep his car competitive despite technological setbacks. His teammate, Sergio Perez, has come back to earth showing the car’s true deficiencies.
Last week, Verstappen’s on track temper tantrum cost him dearly. He calmed down and regained his focus for this week.
A Weekend in Brazil.
Lando Norris and Oscar Piastri dominated yesterday’s sprint race. Piastri was ordered to change places with Norris to help him in the drivers championship. Charles Leclerc finished third followed closely by Max Verstappen.
Today’s race featured qualification early in the day. During Q2, Lance Stroll’s crash caused a red flag. Verstappen was running 12th and due to the red flag was unable to get back on track for another fast lap. He was relegated to start 17th due to a five-place grid penalty for changing engines.
The race in Sao Paulo started dramatically. During the formation lap, Lance Stroll spun out causing an aborted start. The call for an aborted start led to confusion for the drivers and teams. Some teams went on another formation lap. Max Verstappen and others stayed put since no green light came on. Due to the confusion the race restarted roughly fifteen minutes later.
Lando Norris and George Russell started in the front row followed by Yuki Tsunoda and Esteban Ocon. Estaban’s teammate, Pierre Gasly started his Alpine in thirteenth position. At the start, George Russell pinched Norris to the outside and wheeled into the inside line taking first at the first corner of the race.
Ocon, Tsunoda and Liam Lawson drove three wide around the same corner, but Tsunoda stayed in front of the other two cars as they headed into the next turn. Meanwhile, Max Verstappen had moved up to 11th position on the first lap.
As lap two began, Verstappen passed Lewis Hamilton on the inside line moving into tenth position. He made up seven places by the first corner of lap two. Meanwhile Gasly had moved up to ninth position while Ocon held on to his fourth position.
By lap 11, Verstappen had moved into sixth position. He moved to fifth position when Charles Leclerc pitted during lap 25. At this point in the race, the rain started coming down hard. Then, Nico Hulkenberg spun out in the driving rain triggering a virtual safety car. Several cars to pitted and changed tires.
At lap 29, the green flag waved, and the race was on. However, as the virtual safety car ended, Russell, Norris and Tsunoda came into the pits to change tires, leaving Ocon and Verstappen in first and second position! Russell and Norris exited the pits behind Gasly who moved into third.
During lap 30, the track was a river as the cars sent rooster tails of water high into the air. It was such a deluge, race control put a safety car on the track until the showers dwindled away. Then, during lap 32, while under a yellow flag, rookie Franko Colapinto spun his Williams into the wall triggering a red flag.
Red Bull took advantage of the red flag and put on a new set of intermediate tires to finish the race.
Once racing resumed, there was a mixture of yellow and green flags until lap 40 when Carlos Sainz spun his Ferrari into the wall. His shunt didn’t cause a red flag, and his car was quickly cleared off the track.
During Lap 42, the green flag waved again. At the beginning of lap 43, Max Verstappen took the inside line on turn one and blew by Ocon’s Alpine and never turned back.
Through a combination of masterful driving and a bit of racing luck, Max Verstappen climbed from 17th to 1st in 43 laps. Verstappen ended up winning the race by 19 seconds. He showed his racing prowess in the most adverse conditions. He found the right line and drove a brilliant race, taking proper advantage of favorable situations as they unfolded. This is the mark of a champion.
Alpine’s race was phenomenal. It is the first time that both drivers stood on the podium together. It was nice to see the French rivals now teammates drive in victory formation around the Sao Paulo track.
With three races to go this season, this is Verstappen’s championship to lose. He is comfortably in the lead. It is unlikely that Lando Norris can achieve enough points to challenge Verstappen. All Max Verstappen needs to do is keep his cool and finish his races in the points. Keeping cool has been a problem for the flying Dutchman in the past so the last three races will still be interesting.
On to Vegas!
