After the Finish Line: Interlagos 2024

It's nice to watch a race that overshadows all of the preceding controversies.

Never mind the bollocks, here’s the race for the ages. That’s how I would try to summarize the weekend at Interlagos in one sentence.

RB scored points, Lawson once again demonstrated that his elbows are not made of rubber, Perez continued to not impress, Hamilton had a race to forget. There were also some controversies, but whatever! They served as mere background for a humble sim racer.

Different Class

Max Verstappen has finally toppled Brazil 2016. As of November 3, 2024, at 12:30 BRT, that was his best performance, but not anymore.

The Dutchman, eight years later at Interlagos—the very same venue where he had demonstrated his prowess in wet conditions, drove like the all-time great that he is. He overtook rivals on the brakes without DRS assistance, made no errors, set 17 fastest laps, and reminded everyone why he’s been at the top of the driver hierarchy for a good couple of years.

By the way, Verstappen set a new record for wins from different grid positions, achieving a total of 10. He officially started from P17, but given that Carlos Sainz started from the pit lane, Alex Albon didn’t start at all, and Lance Stroll finished the race in the gravel without completing the formation lap, he effectively had “only” 13 drivers to beat. So he did that.

He undoubtedly benefited from the strategic missteps of Ferrari, Mercedes, McLaren, and Red Bull, who pitted Charles Leclerc, George Russell, Lando Norris, and Yuki Tsunoda for new tires while they were ahead of Verstappen, and the red flag following Colapinto’s crash. Thanks to that he gained 4 positions and a free tire change. Luck made it up to him a bit after a 5 place grid penalty for taking a new engine, as well as the red flag that had prematurely ended his qualifying at Q2.

The rest was the daring overtakes and the unmachted pace. Just look at the list of the fastest laps of the race and see what Verstappen could do, once he got some clean air. The second-fastest time, set by Norris, was a full second slower. We were fortunate that the Dutchman started from the back; otherwise, he likely would have pulled away and lapped the competition, as his McLaren counterpart suggested.

Verstappen delivered the performance of the decade. And it’ll be really hard to topple it, even for him.

The Vice Championship Fight

Before the race, speaking to the French media, Leclerc said that there’s more of a fight between him and Norris for P2 in the driver’s standings, than a fight for the title with the Brit and Verstappen. Well, Sunday has proved him right.

Norris is 62 points behind the leader, and with only three races remaining, he can practically forget about raising the championship trophy at the FIA gala at the end of the year.

He certainly can’t be satisfied with a P6 finish in Brazil, which was partially the result of bad strategy and his own mistakes—going off track twice and losing two positions, one of which was to Leclerc, who is only 24 points behind the McLaren driver. Consequently, the gap remained unchanged from the Mexico City Grand Prix, as the points from the sprint and the race balanced each other out.

Does the Monegasque have a chance? I would say yes, but it’s slim. Ferrari was very good last year in Las Vegas, where Leclerc hypothetically can take the most points from Norris. However, Qatar and Abu Dhabi will likely favor McLaren.

Every Underdog Has Its Day

Other than Leclerc, the only driver who posed a challenge to Verstappen was Esteban Ocon, who stood on the podium for the first time since last year’s race in Monaco, which was also affected by rain. His teammate, Pierre Gasly, who finished in third place, also secured a podium last year in tricky conditions, but at Zandvoort.

Wet races have often provided smaller teams with the opportunity to get a podium finish or grab big points, and credit to the Enstone team for capitalizing on the chance presented by the weather. They scored 67% of all their constructor points on Sunday and jumped RB and Haas in the standings. In fact, they left Brazil with the highest total of points: 33.

The Silent Heroes

There was considerable uproar among fans regarding the timing of the VSC in the sprint and the red flags in qualifying. However, I believe all of that will soon be forgotten, thanks to the outstanding race, the best one of the year, I would say.

Credit goes to the FIA and FOM for rescheduling the qualifying sessions and the race, so we didn’t have to face the repetition of Spa 2021.

Furthermore, credit goes to Niels Wittich, the Race Director, for not throwing out a red flag on a whim and allowing the race to continue, even in, at one point, very difficult conditions. It felt as though I was watching a grand prix from the 2000s.

Thank you to the FIA, FOM, and Mr. Wittich.

The Most Important Question

Now we’ve entered a three week break before the next race, we can use this time to address a question raised by the winner during the post-race conference: Where was the British press?

Cheeky, petty, beautiful.