Norris sails to victory in Sao Paulo, extends points lead with weekend sweep; Antonelli scores career-best P2 finish; Verstappen rallies from pit lane start to podium with otherworldly P3 effort; Ferrari face double DNF in incident-packed race

McLaren’s Lando Norris did his Championship aspirations a world of good in Sao Paulo, capping off a dominant Round 21 weekend by handily winning Sunday’s Grand Prix after also taking victory in Saturday’s Sprint Race. The young Briton, who will turn 26 in a few days, expanded his lead over top rival and teammate Oscar Piastri to 24 points by taking a maximum of 33 in Brazil. Untoubled in the race after starting from pole, Norris easily led the majority of the 71-laps at Interlagos and was never really pressured by any of the other top competitors, even after early Safety Car and Virtual Safety Car periods due to incidents behind him. Piastri, meanwhile, showed signs of feeling the pressure of his teammate’s superior form since Round 16 in Italy, when his hit own lead began slipping away. The Aussie contender crashed out of the Saturday Sprint and then qualified P4 for the GP. Eager to advance his position and close the gap to Norris up at the point, Piastri tried a bit of dive-bomb move on the Mercedes of Kimi Antonelli steaming ump the inside of Turn 1 on Lap 6. However, the Aussie overcooked it, locked up and wound up tagging the Silver Arrow. Antonelli was then shunted into the second place Ferrari of Charles Leclerc, instantly ending the Monegasque’s race with a broken wheel. After taking their time to assign blame, the stewards came down on Piastri to the tune of a ten-second penalty that effectively ended his hopes of a podium finish. Despite his best efforts and leading the race briefly on pit stop cycle, Piastri ended up where he started in fourth, keeping his deficit to Norris to under one victory’s points value at 24. But with only three rounds now remaining in the 2025 season, the advantage for the coveted F1 Drivers’ Title lies strongly with Norris, while Piastri’s stumbles down the stretch make it seem highly unlikely that he can catch him.

Chaos at the race restart! #F1 #BrazilGP pic.twitter.com/isqw82KVJo

— Formula 1 (@F1) November 9, 2025

Antonelli survived the contact with Piastri and went on to thrive to the tune of a career-best P2 finish. More impressive for the Italian rookie, he had to fight of the otherworldly efforts of Red Bull’s Max Verstappen in the closing stages of the race. In one of the more astonishing drives in a career already full of them, Verstappen started from the pit lane but stormed all the way back to a P3 podium finish by the time the checkers flew. Not only did the Dutch Master put in a sublime performance behind the wheel, but the team gave him the tools he needed to fight after qualifying a lowly P16. The Red Bull braintrust cleverly opted to give Verstappen a fresh engine, thereby not only requiring a pit lane start but also breaking parc fermé and enabling them to undue the disastrous set-up changes that led to their qualifying woes. Between the powerful new power unit and the savvy tweaks to the car’s aero balance, Verstappen was free to fly and overtook with aplomb until his final set of Soft Pirellis went off in the final laps and Antonelli proved able to escape his best efforts.

Top 10 finishers of the Sao Paulo GP:

Pos	Driver		Time	Pts
1		L. Norris McLaren · #4	1:32:01.596	25
2		A.K. Antonelli Mercedes · #12	+10.388s	18
3		M. Verstappen Red Bull · #1	+10.75s	15
4		G. Russell Mercedes · #63	+15.267s	12
5		O. Piastri McLaren · #81	+15.749s	10

6		O. Bearman Haas · #87	+29.63s	8
7		L. Lawson RB · #30	+52.642s	6
8		I. Hadjar RB · #6	+52.873s	4
9		N. Hülkenberg Kick Sauber · #27	+53.324s	2
10		P. Gasly Alpine · #10	+53.914s	1

Complete race results available via Formula1.com.

The next race weekend takes place towards the end of the month over November 20-22, as the teams head back up to North America for the Las Vegas Grand Prix. Which contender will end up the luckiest in that fantastically illuminated nocturnal shootout and who will roll snake eyes?  Hope to see you then to find out how it all shakes out in Sin City!