Now separated by a single point, the English Lando Norris and the Australian Oscar Piastri, the two McLaren drivers, reopen their fight for the title – with the Dutch quadruple world champion Max Verstappen (Red Bull) in the lead – at the Sao Paulo Grand Prix (Brazil). The twenty-first of the Formula One World Championship, at the Interlagos circuit and, again, with a sprint format.
Norris, 25 years old, once again leads the race at the Autódromo Jose Carlos Pace in São Paulo, where he arrives after winning in Mexico, with 357 points. Only one more than Piastri, who did not go beyond fifth place two Sundays ago; and with 36 over ‘Mad Max’, third in the Mexican capital and which since the end of August began to give an unexpected twist to a championship that concludes on December 7 in Abu Dhabi: closing of a journey of three consecutive weekends of races that starts in Las Vegas and will continue in Qatar.
The championship seemed to be the exclusive matter of the two McLarens, a team that in Singapore had already mathematically revalidated the constructors’ title. But the Dutch star – who two months ago seemed ruled out of capturing a fifth straight crown – has won three of the last five races. In which, in addition, he did not stop getting on the podium. And, especially after passing the steamroller in Austin, USA, he sat at the applicants’ table. Asking for letters.
Interlagos, a legendary track of 4,309 meters – the fourth shortest on the calendar with fifteen curves and five to the right -, which on Sunday is scheduled to be completed (in a counterclockwise direction) 71 laps, to complete 305.9 kilometers, hosts the fifth and penultimate weekend with a sprint format. Reason why there will only be one free practice, this Friday; day in whose second session the qualification for the sprint test will be completed.
The short race, about a little more than a third of the Sunday race – that is, 24 laps and a distance of about 102 kilometers – will be held, hours before the main qualifying session, on Saturday. And points will be distributed, remember, among the top eight finishers. Adding spice to the weekend and the outcome of the championship.
The winner will take eight points; seven for the second and six for the third… and so on, until the eighth, which will add up to one.
It can rain, it is common in Sao Paulo; which since 2021 has given its name to the Brazilian Grand Prix until then. It debuted on the World Cup calendar in 1973 and reached its fifty-first edition this weekend.
Find out: Lando Norris wins the Mexican Grand Prix and takes the lead from Piastri
Brazilian GP; a challenging circuit
On the second highest circuit in the World Championship (785 meters above sea level), behind Mexico, in dry conditions, however, tires from the intermediate range of compounds will be used. That is, with the C2 -hard, recognizable by the white stripe-, the C3 -medium, yellow stripe- and C4 -soft, red-.
Fernando Alonso returns to the circuit where he made several Spanish fans cry with emotion 20 years ago, when he marked a milestone by becoming the then youngest world champion in history; and the first – and so far only – Spaniard to win a title that he would revalidate, in the same scenario, a year later.
The Asturian double world champion has never won in Brazil, where no one among the active ones, however, equals his nine podiums. Fernando, in an eternal second youth at 44 years old and 32 times victorious in the premier category, has been second three times and third six times in Interlagos; where he celebrated his one hundred and sixth and so far last podium in F1 two years ago, finishing third. In his first season with Aston Martin.
Alonso is twelfth in the World Cup, with 37 points, one less than his compatriot Carlos Sainz (Williams), 31 years old, who precedes him in one place overall; and that he also did not celebrate any of his four victories in F1 in Brazil, but he did celebrate two of his 28 podiums: the first of all, in 2019, when he finished third with a McLaren; and in 2022, when he also finished in that position, aboard a Ferrari.
In Sao Paulo – where Ferrari comes second in the Constructors’ World Championship, with only one point over Mercedes and ten over Red Bull – it will compete in its fifteenth Grand Prix since the 22-year-old Argentine Franco Colapinto (Alpine) returned to F1, still looking for his first points so far in 2025.
No one equals the six victories in Brazil – the first five of them in Jacarepagua (Rio de Janeiro), the other venue that this Grand Prix had – of the French quadruple world champion Alain Prost. And among the active ones, the most victorious – with three wins – are the seven-time crowned Englishman Lewis Hamilton (Ferrari) and Verstappen: the last winner on this track, who a year ago completed an impressive display under the deluge with which he catapulted from seventeenth place on the grid to the top of the podium.
With information from EFE
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