Verstappen rolls to victory for Red Bull in wild Brazilian GP; Gasly an ecstatic P2, Sainz promoted to P3 after Hamilton penalized for late race collision with Albon; Ferrari teammates crash out

Red Bull’s Max Verstappen had the wings all day long and rolled to a dominant win at the Brazilian Grand Prix, his peerless performance the one constant in a topsy-turvy contest at sunny Interlagos on Sunday. With no bad weather to throw curveballs during the proceedings the contestants themselves provided the unpredictability and occasional rashness that led to a thrilling race and the unexpected result of having Toro Rosso’s Pierre Gasly and McLaren’s Carlos Sainz take P2 and P3 respectively to share the podium with Verstappen and grab their highest career finishes in Formula 1. Meanwhile, Mercedes’ Lewis Hamilton was demoted from P3 after a late race gamble to pit from the lead for fresh rubber under Safety Car conditions backfired. Instead, it led to a major loss of track position when the Englishman emerged in P4 and a desperate attempt to get back to the front when the Safety Car was withdrawn with only three laps remaining. But while the newly minted six-time champ got by Gasly for P3 easily enough he couldn’t make a clean pass on the P2 Red Bull of Alexander Albon. Hamilton stuck his nose in forcefully on the penultimate lap going into Turn 10 but the door closed quickly and he ended up spinning out the impressive Thai rookie, denying Albon a probable second place result — a first potential podium for the youngster — and what could have been an even more amazing day for the Red Bull team. Hamilton, perhaps a bit too honestly, accepted full responsibility for the incident and was promptly penalized off the podium down to P7, much to Sainz’s and McLaren’s overjoyed advantage. Worse still for Mercedes, the second car of Valtteri Bottas suffered an oil pressure failure on Lap 52 that led to the Finn’s first retirement since the rainy crahfest at Hockenheim in late July.

Pics courtesy GrandPrix247.com

But as disappointing as things ended up for mighty Mercedes they went even more sideways for Ferrari. With Charles Leclerc making a heroic effort to claw back positions after a pre-race grid penalty saw him start down in P14 and Sebastian Vettel running solidly at the front and hunting a podium, it seemed almost inevitable that the two intra-team rivals would end up fighting over the same piece of track as the laps wound down. With Leclerc on slightly fresher Soft Pirellis, having pitted four laps later than Vettel during the Bottas Safety Car period, the Monegasque was able to close the gap to his senior teammate, who had lost precious time and, in fact, lost out while dicing with Albon for P3. On Lap 66 of this 71-lap contest, Leclerc was close enough to make a move and pass Vettel coming out of Turn 3 heading into the Reta Oposta. But Vettel got the DRS on Leclerc as they both steamed into Turn 4, the Descido do Lago. Vettel got his nose ahead but pressed his advantage just a little too aggressively, pushing across the track and into Leclerc’s front tire and wing with his left rear tire. As quickly as that, both Ferraris were out of the race, with the hard-charging Leclerc’s day of brilliant recovery work done in by a broken front right suspension courtesy of his teammate. Simultaneously, Vettel’s left rear tire delaminated badly after the contact and the carcass became a buzz saw whipping away at all that precious carbon fiber body work. It was a hell of a finish for the famed Scuderia going from a guaranteed strong points day to zero and will certainly not please the braintrust at Maranello. It’s also sure to worsen the already strained relations between the upstart would-be team leader and the decorated veteran, who has in truth made more than his fair share of mistakes during his tenure at Ferrari.

But whatever drama and fireworks happened behind them, the day belonged to the trio of Verstappen, Gasly and Sainz. No one could touch the Dutchman all race long and both Red Bulls seemed to be way ahead of their key rivals in terms of getting their tires to both turn on and maintain performance here at this very short and busy 4.3 kilometer circuit. The victory also pushed Verstappen into third place in the Drivers’ standings ahead of Leclerc with only one race remaining on the calendar and also marked the Ducthman’s career best third win of the year. On this day at least, neither Mercedes or Ferrari had anything for the star Red Bull driver and it will be very interesting to see if Red Bull have found something to take it to the top two late in 2019 at the very different Yas Marina track in Abu Dhabi for the season finale. For Gasly it was sweet redemption after being demoted from the senior Red Bull team back down to Toro Rosso midway through the season. The P2 finish after holding off a pursuing Hamilton was the Frenchman’s best ever result and the culmination of a resurgence in his confidence and a run of good results after the sting of being replaced by Albon as Verstappen’s wingman. Hopefully Gasly can build on this special result in Brazil to make his case for a seat at a top team sometime in the near future and, more importantly, be able to perform at this kind of high level when he does get that shot again. For Sainz it was a subtly brilliant day in the saddle at Interlagos. He was the only driver to really make the one-stop strategy work, running the Hard tires on his second stint effectively and putting himself in position to take advantage of the mayhem in front of him as first Bottas, then both Ferraris then the unfortunate Albon  tumbled out of contention. That saw the Spaniard finish P4, which promptly led to a post-race promotion to the P3 for Sainz and team McLaren when Hamilton was adjudged to be at fault for the contretemps that likely robbed Albon of his own maiden podium finish. The official P3 result was the elated Sainz’s first career podium and McLaren’s first since way back in Australia, 2014.

Hamilton’s official post-penalty P7 classification also benefitted Alfa Romeo, who saw wily veteran Kimi Raikkonen elevated to P4 and the promising but erratic Antonio Giovinazzi take P5 for a much-needed banner points haul for the team. Renault’s Daniel Ricciardo survived an early race clash with Haas’ Kevin Magnussen that led to a 5-second time penalty of his own to come home P6. The second McLaren of Lando Norris continued to show increasingly effective controlled aggression, often holding off faster cars but keeping it clean to take P8. Racing Point’s Sergio Perez was brilliant in somehow managing to finish P9 despite the car’s complete lack of pace, which saw the veteran Mexican start from way back in P15 on the grid. And Gasly’s teammate Daniil Kvyat benefitted from a bad day from other midfield rivals like star-crossed Haas and a poor race from the second Renault of Nico Hulkenberg, as well as all the troubles afflicting Ferrari and Mercedes, to take the last point in P10.

Top 10 finishers of the Brazilian GP:

Compete race results available via Formula1.com.

The next race, the season finale, is in two week’s time from the psychedelic futuristic Yes Marina Circuit in Abu Dhabi. Have Red Bull found something to give them momentum going into next year? Can Ferrari regroup after yet another self-inflicted catastrophe? Or will Mercedes end the year as they started, with a dominant 1-2 finish after the sun goes down on the 2019 season in Abu Dhabi? Hope to see you then to find out how it all shakes out in the last race of the year!