Sao Paulo GP: Max Verstappen wins wet thriller with stunning comeback drive to move to brink of world championship
Max Verstappen produced a stunning comeback from 17th on the grid to win the Sao Paulo Grand Prix; pole-sitter Lando Norris' title bid all but over after finishing sixth in error-strewn display; Esteban Ocon and Pierre Gasly seal shock double podium for Alpine
Monday 4 November 2024 08:29, UK
Max Verstappen won a thrilling wet Sao Paulo Grand Prix from 17th on the grid to move to the brink of a fourth successive world championship, as title rival Lando Norris faltered from pole position.
Verstappen produced a sublime display of driving to surge through the field during a chaotic contest, which featured a red flag and two Safety Car interruptions, ending a 10-race winless streak that stretched back to June's Spanish Grand Prix.
With pole-sitter Norris ultimately finishing sixth after a questionable call to pit as rain intensified was compounded by two significant driver errors at later restarts, Verstappen extended his lead to 62 points with just 86 points still available over the remaining three rounds of the season.
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Verstappen can seal the title in Las Vegas in three weeks' time simply by finishing the race ahead of Norris, who now needs to take more than 20 points per remaining round out of the Dutchman to overhaul him.
"Starting in P17 I knew it would be a very tough race," Verstappen said. "We stayed out of trouble, made the right calls, we stayed calm and we were flying.
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"All of these things together. It's unbelievable to win here from so far back on the grid."
Esteban Ocon and Pierre Gasly followed Verstappen home to score a stunning double podium for Alpine, catapulting the team from ninth to sixth in the constructors' standings.
George Russell, who overtook Norris to take the lead at the first corner but botched his chances of victory by pitting from the lead at the same time as his compatriot, took fourth for Mercedes ahead of Ferrari's Charles Leclerc.
Despite their inevitable disappointment at Norris' title bid fading, McLaren were able to marginally extend their Constructors' Championship lead over Ferrari to 36 points as Oscar Piastri took eighth.
Another pointless outing for Verstappen's team-mate Sergio Perez left Red Bull 49 points adrift of McLaren and appearing unlikely to extend their streak of two successive constructors' titles.
Yuki Tsunoda took seventh and RB team-mate Liam Lawson ninth to leave Red Bull's junior squad five points behind Alpine in the constructors' standings. Lewis Hamilton rounded out the points after a miserable weekend for the seven-time world champion.
Norris drove most of the race knowing he would be investigated afterwards for wrongly pulling away from the grid after Lance Stroll's formation-lap crash resulted in an aborted start.
Norris and McLaren confused an aborted start - which sees cars wait on the grid and mechanics return - for an instruction to carry out another formation lap, and pulled away.
Norris and Russell, who was also on the front row, each received a reprimand and fine of €5,000 for their errors. Tsunoda and Lawson were investigated but cleared on account of having merely followed the cars in front.
Following a separate investigation, Russell, along with team-mate Hamilton, avoided a sporting penalty after Mercedes breached the regulations by changing the tyre pressures on their cars after the aborted start.
How Verstappen stunned Norris in Sao Paulo
Verstappen's turnaround was made all the more dramatic by the fact a pretty disastrous qualifying session for the Dutchman had taken place on Sunday after it was postponed following a downpour on Saturday.
Norris appeared extremely well set to make further inroads into his rival, having already won Saturday's Sprint - before the rain - to reduce Verstappen's advantage to 44 points.
A chaotic wet qualifying saw Norris narrowly escape an early elimination before taking pole, while Verstappen was unlucky to be knocked out and finish 12th, which meant he would start from 17th having received a grid penalty for taking a new engine at the start of the weekend.
The race was moved 90 minutes earlier in the hope of avoiding the worst of Sunday's forecast, but things began to unravel for Norris before the lights had even gone out to signal the start of the race.
Perhaps unsettled by the aborted start drama, Norris was unable to fend off Russell at the first corner and consequently lost the opportunity to build a lead as he remained stuck behind the Mercedes.
In contrast, Verstappen gained six places on the first lap, and then passed old rival Hamilton at the start of the second lap to move into the top 10.
He would continue to make easy progress up to sixth, before being held up behind Leclerc at the back of a train led by Tsunoda and Ocon.
That enabled Russell and Norris to extend their advantage, but the race would turn dramatically as the rain intensified and Nico Hulkenberg spun his Haas to cause a Virtual Safety Car on lap 28.
Mercedes and McLaren then made a surprising decision to pit Russell and Norris just after the VSC had expired, giving up track position with the increasing intensity of the rain seeming likely to soon cause a red flag or Safety Car.
It was the latter that soon came, which left Ocon, Verstappen and Gasly at the head of the field, but on the increasingly worn intermediate tyres they had started on.
That it was a Safety Car rather than a red flag appeared to have been a reprieve for Norris and Russell, as the leading trio would surely need to stop for new tyres, but that hope was suddenly extinguished when Franco Colapinto crashed his Williams under the Safety Car conditions to trigger a red flag.
That gave the top three the chance to put on fresh tyres as the race was paused for 30 minutes and the rain given a chance to relent.
"It was just unlucky. I don't care about the hindsight side of things, that's luck for them, nothing more," Norris told Sky Sports F1. "They got lucky on a rule that no one agrees with. Probably they agreed with it but every driver has disagreed with it in the past.
"Today it benefitted then, it could have benefitted us if we just stayed out, but that's a stupid thing to think of. Just a bit unlucky today, nothing more. Of course, disappointing
"[Max] drove well, he got a bit lucky but that's life."
When it resumed, Ocon was able to keep Verstappen at bay, while Norris ran wide to allow Russell back past him.
But another opportunity was presented to the Dutchman when Carlos Sainz crashed his Ferrari to trigger another Safety Car, and this time Verstappen pounced at the restart to pass Ocon at Turn 1.
Norris made another mistake, this time dropping behind Leclerc and team-mate Piastri, who would let him through following a team order.
Verstappen charged almost 20 seconds clear by the chequered flag, ending what had been a highly turbulent week with one of the best victories of his career.
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