Carnival of Chaos
Brazil is one of those races everyone enjoys no matter who they support because the Sao Paulo Grand Prix has the tendency to write crazy racing stories. Unexpected pole positions, podiums or wins happen almost yearly and so it’s not a big surprise that there is a lot to recap about Sunday’s race.
First and foremost it was a Sprint weekend which means there are two opportunities to score points: One shorter race on Saturday and then the regular race on Sunday. Both races were heavily impacted by one driver: Oscar Piastri. And not in a good way. The title contender managed to spin out on the first lap of the sprint race, allowing his team mate Lando Norris to further extend his lead in the championship. Regarding how strong Oscar was all season, his recent loss of form has left fans and experts puzzled. On Sunday he managed to knock out Charles Leclerc on lap seven, after a rolling restart since local boy Gabriel Bortoletto had to DNF his race after lap one. The Boy from Brazil had no chance of restarting his Kick Sauber after being hit by Lance Stroll in corner one – A disappointing first home Grand Prix for the Rookie after a serious crash in the Sprint Race as well.
With two cars out after a tenth of the race Max Verstappen had been able to crawl up the ranks after having started from the pitlane. This was a regulatory penalty for changing his gearbox during a race weekend. Red Bull’s strategy paid off: the car was on the rails and ran smoothly all the way up to P3. Verstappen even managed to snag P1 for a short while, letting the orange army of Dutch supporters dream for a few hopeful laps. Ultimately Verstappen ended the race third after a brilliant Kimi Antonelli (P2) and Lando Norris (P1). Antonelli managed to score his second podium in his first season in Formula 1.
Lewis Hamilton had to stop his race after a collision with Sainz early on in the race. He tried to continue driving his Ferrari for a couple more laps but sadly the floor of the car was too heavily damaged and the team called him in to save tyres and get a head start on fixing the SF25.
Overall the race was very interesting to watch and had interesting battles throughout the ranks.
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Featured image designed on Canva
