“Maxterclass.” – (You’re welcome, Sian <3)
Goodness me. This weekend may have turned out to be the title clincher for both two-wheels and four-wheels. The difference is, over for F1 and the Brazilian Grand Prix, we have a hell of a lot of bullshit to deal with in terms of the story of the weekend. It was four days of media slander, a track resurfacing, questionable stewarding, team orders, rain, and in the end, a reminder as to who the current king of F1 is. Let’s try and get into it.
As I sometimes like to do, this is going to be a running diary-style DRR, with notes dropping as we go. Dear Diary…
Thursday and Friday
It was awkward going into the weekend for sure. Look, I’m never afraid to call out our own, sometimes the British media like to poke at people. The fact it’s with non-British drivers is probably coincidental, but when you’ve grown up in the era of Sebastian Vettel and Michael Schumacher… yeah. I think Verstappen was a little OTT by his claims of having the wrong passport and playing the “woe is me” game, because criticism of his Mexico driving was warranted, without a shadow of a doubt.
But I also think people need to realise that Max is never going to change his driving style after 10 years of putting together one of the greatest careers we’ve ever seen in F1. It’s that stubbornness and sometimes recklessness that’s made him, him.
Also, didn’t realise that Interlagos had been resurfaced and hit with a jet washer for that extra hit of abrasiveness. Sure it won’t come into play with that 60% chance of rain on Sunday, right?
So, into Friday, Sprint Qualifying was a statement and a half. McLaren was back on form with a kerb-stomping of the field, but it was Oscar Piastri who headed up the 1-2 ahead of Lando Norris, with Charles Leclerc a quarter of a second back in third, and Verstappen fourth. That Ferrari burst of form seems to be just that.
The other notes? It’s genuinely more surprising when Nico Hulkenberg doesn’t make Q3 instead of Lewis Hamilton at this point. It’s genuinely sad that one of LH’s greatest strengths is quickly becoming a weakness with the W15. It will be fascinating to see if that carries over into Ferrari. Liam Lawson making SQ3 over Sergio Perez is likely also in that same boat.
Was gutted to hear that Kevin Magnussen was sick as well, but good for Ollie Bearman filling in again and then making SQ3 as well. He was a bit silly to keep pushing on a hot lap at the end where he blatantly broke track limits, but you know, rookie teething problems.
Saturday
Goodness me. That was… a lot. What is it with McLaren and making things needlessly difficult for themselves? The Sprint itself was a hot mess at the front. The running order at the front stayed largely the same, but Norris was constantly in Piastri’s grill. Going into the Sprint, I openly wondered if McLaren was going to swap drivers and get Lando the Sprint win. They hinted at it early on when Lando complained about “the plan”, but it wasn’t until they hit a panic level of Def Con 3 before it finally happened. I know they were afraid of the threat from behind and Piastri losing second, but late on they had a second plus in hand.
It wasn’t until the late VSC for Nico Hulkenberg’s car dying on the side of the road and the local yellow going for a full lap before McLaren finally pulled the pin and made the swap. I’m not even a McLaren fan and this was giving me heart palpitations just watching it. It just reeks of a team who even at this point knows what they have to do but still don’t want to step on anyone’s toes to do it. There isn’t a nice way of doing team orders, and I don’t know why they’re still so sensitive to it when Piastri said back in BAKU that he was okay with it. It’s unserious behaviour and it’s why this team rightly gets criticised amongst more neutral fans.
Verstappen pulled off a brilliant pass on Leclerc to take third and he had an outside chance of pouncing on Piastri once the swap was made but Max went 0.63 seconds under the VSC delta when it ended. The five-second penalty dropped him to fourth again and one extra point in the race for the title for Norris. Required Run Rate, down to 11 from 11.4.
Also, why on earth did it take over a full lap for Hulkenberg’s dead car to get VSC’d? I don’t want to subscribe to the old “Ferrari International Assistance” jokes and the tinfoil hat brigade, but there was zero reason for the FIA to take as long as it did to neutralise the race. Hulkenberg was allowed to get out of his car on his own steam, with only a local yellow. That’s extremely late and dangerous and for me, unacceptable. I don’t want to be tinfoil-hatted about these decisions, what can be prescribed as incompetence almost always covers genuine malice in Motorsport stewarding, but it certainly felt like an “entertainment” call. And that makes me uncomfortable about the officiating. Stop me if you’ve heard that one before.
And as we wait for GP Qualifying… the heavens opened. Hard. Part of the charm of Interlagos is that no matter what part of the year it is, there’s always an outside chance of rain messing with the weekend, and 2024 was no exception. It’s annoying, but we got those 15-minute repeated “next update” messages until 8:30 UK time when the stewards decided that there was no chance of conditions safe enough to race in and postponed Qualifying until Sunday morning. Probably the right call. I’m not one of these fans who has a bloodlust to run no matter what, I’m more than comfortable with drawing a line and saying no.
Heavy rain combined with poor visibility from the spray is a horrendous mix and while I know F1 doesn’t want another Spa 2021, it has to air on the side of caution. Qualifying being moved to 7:30 am local time is a really bad beat for the mechanics and staff. I know my colleagues Fil and Jon from Autosport had 4am alarms to get into the media centre. It’s rough, but I’m fine with the series taking a more proactive approach to dodging the worst of the forecast weather. Let’s see what Sunday brings…
Sunday Qualifying
Thank God I was already up at 7am for MotoGP’s Sepang race because getting up at 10:30am on a Sunday for a Qualifying session would have been horrid. Anyway… yikes. Still wet during Qualifying, but only light drizzle, enough to rain. But if you’d just looked at the box score, you might have thought a monsoon had hit Interlagos.
An F1 record was tied with FIVE Red Flags across the three sessions, with five separate crashes. Franco Colapinto in Q1, then Carlos Sainz smashing into the second half of the Senna “S”, then Lance Stroll going into Turn 3 on the outside wall. That third Red Flag led to Max Verstappen being eliminated in P12 in the middle of his lap, and drawing the heat from his audience and yet more accusations of bias from the FIA.
My issue wasn’t “Max got screwed”, this shit happened with Lando in Baku, sometimes you’re just unlucky on the timings of incidents and you can’t control that. What worried me was the 40-second delay between Stroll hitting the outside wall in Turn 3 and the session being red-flagged. The FIA explained that they delayed the call because Stroll was trying to salvage the car… but this is something that’s been actively discouraged this season by Race Control themselves.
Remember Sergio Perez in Canada? He smashed the outside wall, the Rear Wing was gone and debris from his car was dropped onto the track. Red Bull admitted it wanted to avoid a Safety Car to help Verstappen win the race, so they copped a 25,000 Euro fine for it and Checo took a three-place grid drop for running a car in a dangerous condition. And seeing Stroll’s crash, with virtually no chance of getting the car back safely, with a damaged barrier that needed a delay in Q3 to fix for me says it was bad optics and the second questionable call over a delay of the weekend.
Two more red flags in Q3 as Fernando Alonso slid into the wall after losing the car down the hill to Juncao, and then Alex Albon with minutes left and running second at the time, put a wheel on the pain on the outside of Turn 1 and smashed into the outside wall. With the session now at the 90-minute mark, and just three hours until the race, the repair job was too great and Albon had to withdraw from the race. If I had a nickel for every chassis Albon had wrecked this season, I’d have two nickels. Which isn’t a lot but it’s weird that it’s happened twice.
Lando Norris eventually got pole position, but you gotta love when you get some surprises, with Yuki Tsunoda qualifying third, teammate Liam Lawson in fifth, sandwiching Esteban Ocon. Scenes. And just like that, Max Verstappen is down in 17th. Game on?
Sunday – The Race
Wow. Wow. Wow. I’m sitting staring at my TV at 11pm, still thinking about that race and that Max Verstappen performance.
He started P17 on the grid. He won by 19 seconds… What title fight?
Max was in a different sport compared to the rest of the field. He was 11th by Lap 1 after carving through the early midfield by using the outside line of Turn 3, a classic Max move from his young Red Bull days. He made mincemeat of Oscar Piastri on the brakes, normally one of the best defensive drivers in the field. He caught the Tsunoda, Ocon, Gasly and Leclerc train in the first half of the race and had his progress stunted a bit, but as the rain got close to the point of undrivable, he stayed out when others boxed for fresh Inters (and in RB’s case, Extreme Wets). And while yes, he got lucky that Franco Colapinto had a huge wreck coming up the hill in a Safety Car situation, bringing out the Red Flag and giving Max a free tyre change… you make your own luck. Max’s survival on worn inters when the conditions were at their worst was what put him into second place when the red flag dropped.
From there, it was the perfect platform to go for the win. On the final restart of the race after Carlos Sainz crashed out, Max attacked Ocon immediately into Turn 1 and took the lead as Norris ran wide behind him and dropped to eighth. It was 30 seconds that defined the Championship. Max would go on to lay a hammering towards Ocon’s Alpine, going anywhere from half to a full second a lap faster per lap and smashing Fastest Lap after Fastest Lap. Seventeen by the time it was all said and done. He was the only man in the 1:20’s by race end, and 10 out of his 11 fastest laps would have given him the bonus point. Norris was nearest but over a full second behind.
It was a statement, it was an ass-whopping. The rain mitigated Red Bull’s performance woes, made it a game of driving skill and Max beat dat ass. It was a not-so-subtle reminder that he is without question the best driver on the planet today and with it, likely his fourth Championship. The gap now sits at 63 points with just three weekends left. Required Run Rate? 21 per weekend. Chris Gayle in his prime for Royal Challengers Bangalore isn’t chasing that down in time. We’re done here. Max Verstappen wins the title in Vegas in three weeks if he wins, if Norris doesn’t outscore him by more than three points, or if Norris scores less than five points on the weekend.
Talking about Lando in general… It’s a sad one. I think there’s been some revising of his season. It’s still a phenomenal achievement he’s been able to keep pace with Max for the majority of 2024, but I still maintain he had a genuine chance to win this title if he’d taken all of his chances this season. Oscar Piastri’s development has gotten in the way a bit, but he’s made life difficult for himself multiple times this year, and this weekend was the final kill shot. McLaren was quick to defend Lando, citing it was more their car’s brakes locking up that caused the errors, but I fear Lando is just not at that level where he’s a true contender for Max yet.
And I don’t want to get too personal, especially with some of the completely OTT and personal abuse he’s taken on social media, but calling the man who you’re admitting would have lapped you had he started on pole “lucky” in dominating anyway, it’s a needlessly immature comment. I get that Lando can be rather sassy at the best of times, and I’m sure there’s some “in the moment” heat that came with it, but this was crossing over into petty. Sincerely, I hope Lando mentally is in the right frame of mind. I have a lot of time for his more self-depreciative nature, it’s a genuine breath of fresh air in modern F1, but I hope it doesn’t accelerate into something more self-destructive. I admit, I am no psychologist so I’m not trained to speculate much more than that, I just want what’s best for him.
I’ve been writing race reports of some kind for a good decade now in some capacity. Sincerely, I can’t think of too many top-to-bottom weekends in any series that were as wild as this one. A Sprint with team orders, two erratic qualifying sessions, one of which was on a Sunday, and a drive from so deep on the grid that only three men ever have done so from further back from seventeenth. And likely, a title sealer at that. And I’ve not even touched the Lightning Round yet…
Speaking of Which…
Alpine. My goodness me, they’ve cracked it. Their car was so much like a boat this season, that it turns out that by just adding water, they’re suddenly competitive. It was an incredible weekend for Team Enstone, who were more than fast enough to hold their own in the wet conditions. George Russell couldn’t crack Pierre Gasly late on, and both he and Esteban Ocon held their nerve during the worst of the rain to take a double podium finish – 35 points in total once you chuck in Gasly’s Sprint points too. It’s the first time Enstone has gotten both cars on the podium since Korea 2013, and the first double French driver podium in F1 since 1997.
And you know what was nice about it? I’m not sure we’ll ever know the full unfiltered story as to why Gasly and Ocon have never gotten along, and they’ve had their rocky moments in their two years as teammates, but it was genuinely lovely to see them both embrace each other after what they’ve done. In such a cutthroat sport, it was nice to see. And are there three better wet-weather drivers in F1 than Esteban? Serious question.
And with it, it lifts Alpine from ninth to sixth in the standings. It’s a weekend that could be worth as much as $30m in Constructor’s Championship gains if they can hold onto it. The makings of a season saver. I still fear they’ll slip back behind Haas and RB, but it’s given Enstone some hope. And honestly, for all those people on the ground floor who have had their futures come into question due to upper management’s decision-making, this one was for them.
Again. Stewarding. Yet more to go through. I think Niels Wittich wanted to get out of the track early on Sunday night because I fear some drivers got away with some shit.
First of all, Mercedes on the grid got called to the stewards, accused of adjusting the tyre pressure of the car after they were already fitted. They were fined five grand for doing so, but reading the report on it was startling because, by my reckoning, they’ve broken a technical directive AND a sporting directive as it was after the ten-minute warning. The mitigating circumstances of the situation, including the aborted start, the warning itself, the condensed schedule and the gate not being opened for access to the grid on time, got them off with just a fine. But it says a lot when the stewards have to add the wording: “We’re not using this as precedent due to unique circumstances”. Cheeky.
Next up, that aborted start. Lando Norris and George Russell both launched off the line when the aborted start lights came up on the grid. Why? Because Lance Stroll went off the track at Turn 4, and in his infinite wisdom, drove straight into a wet gravel trap and beached himself. I… have no words.
Anyway, when the aborted start lights come on, you’re not supposed to leave the grid. You’re meant to wait for Race Direction for further instructions. But Lando and George took off, and then half the grid followed suit, which then forced Race Direction to tell the other seven drivers who had correctly waited to go around again. This, in my opinion, while ultimately harmless, was a potentially extremely dangerous situation. What if they hadn’t recovered Stroll’s car, and someone hit him? Or there’s other recovery vehicles on track? It’s a potentially severe breach in terms of safety and procedure. The fact Norris and Russell only got a reprimand and a five-grand fine was extremely fortunate for them in my opinion.
And look, I know people have been very quick to grab the tinfoil and start talking about McLaren and wanting to make a title fight out of 2024 by giving them the benefit of the doubt from the stewards’ office, or people on Twitter looking for biases or conflicts of interest. So to offer a crumb in this trying time, here’s one for you – We probably shouldn’t be okay with Johnny Herbert being an FIA Steward while he takes money to explain his decisions to a Sportsbook. Just saying.
Oh and one more silver lining for the McLaren community – With Ferrari being pretty crummy after Carlos Sainz’ horrible weekend, you’re back up to 36 points in front for the Constructors. That’s probably enough barring a miracle.
Aston Martin has reversed the spec of their bothersome car more than I’ve had hot dinners this season. Lance Stroll beached himself, Fernando Alonso looked like his back was about to give out due to something he broke when he went offroad, and they are quickly falling down the ladder of the teams. Adrian Newey can’t get there fast enough.
And as cool as it was seeing Lewis Hamilton genuinely emotional at getting to drive Senna’s old MP5 around Interlagos on Sunday… I think I’m officially “Senna’d out”. I fully admit a tinge of hypocrisy given I enjoyed Seb’s work with it in Imola, but it’s always been pretty clear that the family are prepared to license the name and brand as far as the eye can see. The brand activations and merchandise with Seb. The Netflix show on a story that’s already been told countless times. The talk about Web3 and Crypto, blue/yellow/green branding at tracks that aren’t even Interlagos, McLaren’s custom Monaco livery and Senna clothing… it’s a bit much. I get it, he’s a legend, and he triggers an emotional reaction unlike any deceased driver ever, but it’s become suffocating in my opinion. I wish F1 made as much of an effort with other legendary drivers of the past, not just Ayrton.
A penny for James Vowles’ thoughts. You’re down to ninth in the standings, both of your drivers wrote off a car over the weekend, and there’s now every chance you’re about to lose Franco Colapinto because you went all-in for Sainz. Tough season just got tougher.
Sergio Perez. Still cheeks.
One more time – LANCE STROLL SPUN OUT ON A WARM-UP LAP AND THEN DROVE INTO A WET GRAVEL TRAP, WHAT THE ACTUAL FU-
Dre’s Race Rating:
See you in Vegas.
