Brazil win puts Verstappen among F1 legends, on brink of title

SAO PAULO — As the champagne flowed through Red Bull’s post-race celebrations at Interlagos, Christian Horner’s phone rang. On the other end was Formula 1‘s former CEO Bernie Ecclestone with a message for Max Verstappen.

“He rang after the race and said, ‘I’ve seen all the greats win, but that’s one of the very best I’ve ever seen,’, Horner relayed. “Bernie’s a bit older than I am and has seen a bit more, so high credit from someone like him.”

Ecclestone, now 94 but still present at Sunday’s race, is one of the few people in a position to make such cross-generational comparisons. He’s been a part of F1 since the 1950s and ruled the sport during the careers of some of its greats, such as Ayrton Senna and Michael Schumacher. If he says Verstappen’s win from 17th on the grid in Brazil was one of the best of all time, there’s very few who can argue.

It’s also safe to say that it was a win worthy of a four-time world champion, which is fitting as that is exactly what Verstappen will become in Las Vegas if his points lead over Lando Norris, now at 62, remains at 60 or above after F1’s visit to Nevada. After more than four months without a grand prix win, and two weeks with a fair degree of criticism about the way he goes racing, above all, Verstappen’s win was a timely reminder of just how brilliant he is.

Verstappen shines as Norris struggles

Going into Sunday’s race, it seemed like the stage was set for Norris to cut into Verstappen’s title lead. After the McLaren driver’s victory in Saturday’s sprint race, the gap had closed to 44 points, with Norris carrying that momentum into Sunday morning’s qualifying session and securing pole position.

Verstappen had other ideas, though.

Seemingly fired up by criticism of his driving a week ago in Mexico and a red flag in qualifying that left him 12th fastest (before his five-place grid penalty dropped him to 17th on the grid), he channeled that aggression into the race and made up six positions on the opening lap.

“This morning I was very upset, and my emotions went from almost trying to destroy the garage to winning the race,” Verstappen said. “But I surprised myself today to win here, to be honest. We had a really good start, we stayed out of trouble, we made good overtakes and we were very fast.”

Continuing the theme of comparisons with the best drives of all time, Horner highlighted the similarity between Verstappen’s first lap at Interlagos and Senna’s legendary drive from fifth to first on the opening lap of the 1993 European Grand Prix at Donington Park.

“I thought Max’s start today was electric,” Horner said. “That first lap was up there with Donington ’93, the way he went around the outside of Turn 3. I think he passed, what, six cars on the first lap? And then he was the only car that was really making progress, being able to pick cars up so late on the brakes into Turn 1.”

By contrast, Norris lost a position to George Russell on the short but slippery run to Turn 1 and then became stuck behind the Mercedes for the first 30 laps of the race.

“Wet starts are a bit of a gamble,” Norris said. “They’ll go your way one day and then the next not.

“The left side [of the grid, where Russell started] was a little bit better than the right side so that didn’t change much, but all of the position losses were just under the red flag in the free pitstops for the others.”

Norris rightly refers to the mid-race red flag as the moment his fortunes changed. Regardless of whether he kept Russell behind at the start, it wouldn’t have made any difference by the time the race was suspended on lap 32.

After asking his McLaren team for fresh tyres from lap 18, Norris, Russell and Yuki Tsunoda in third place all pitted for fresh rubber on lap 28. The rain that had hung over the circuit since the first lap had intensified, and the top three decided to make use of a Virtual Safety Car (VSC) to minimise the time loss of a pit stop to fresh intermediate tyres.

It seemed like the prudent choice in the conditions, but came with the downside of shuffling all three behind Esteban Ocon, Verstappen and Pierre Gasly, who opted not to pit.

On lap 30, shortly before race control deployed a safety car because of the conditions, Norris got ahead of Russell and up to fourth place. As he did so, Norris lapped 2.1 seconds faster than Verstappen, underlining the pace advantage of the fresh rubber.

If the rain had eased off at that moment and the safety car not been deployed, perhaps Norris’ pit stop would have been the stroke of genius that sent him on to victory. Rather than ease off, though, the rain got heavier — to the point that Franco Colapinto crashed as he attempted to catch up with the safety car and caused a red flag.

Events had clearly conspired against Norris, and with the benefit of hindsight, the lap-28 pit stop was a mistake. Team principal Andrea Stella defended McLaren’s strategists after the race, though.

“Lando had already been saying that we needed a new set of tyres, the rain was increasing and there was a virtual safety car, so I think these were perfect conditions to actually pit, because you want to put your car on the best tyres for the next stint with more rain,” he said. “You want to finish the race — because you don’t want aquaplaning on tyres that are getting relatively worn — and you have a virtual safety car, which means you are going to execute this pitstop in the minimum amount of time. So, for us, this was a very sensible call.

With Verstappen running in fifth position as the rain became heavier, it was a very different cost-benefit analysis for the Red Bull pit wall.

“We could see the weather obviously was getting horrendous,” Horner said. “Max’s tyres were in good shape, though, and so a new set of inters versus what he had was negligible. So, we took the decision, ‘Look, let’s go long.’ And then, of course, our bad luck this morning in qualifying was fortune this afternoon, when the race got red flagged and then it effectively gets neutralised.”

Under F1’s rules, drivers are allowed a free tyre change under a red flag, meaning Verstappen gained the positions when the top three pitted and had the benefit of fresh tyres when the race restarted.

Seen one way, Red Bull and Verstappen (along with Alpine’s Ocon and Gasly) were rewarded handsomely for gambling on the race being red flagged before it happened. Seen from the perspective of a driver who had a potential win and a shot at a first world championship stripped away, it was viewed as “lucky.”

“I don’t care about the hindsight side of things, that’s luck for [Red Bull], nothing more,” Norris said. “They got lucky on a rule (the freedom to change tyres under a red flag) that no one agrees with. Probably then they agreed with it but every driver has disagreed with it in the past. Today it benefitted then, it could have benefitted us if we just stayed out, but that’s a stupid thing to think of. Just a bit unlucky today, nothing more. Of course, disappointing.”

Why luck had nothing to do with it

The performance Verstappen showed once he was on fresh intermediates was on another level, as he set 17 fastest laps on his way to a 19-second victory margin. He had a confidence on the brakes that no other driver on track could replicate, and his eventual overtake on Ocon on lap 43 was beautifully controlled.

Verstappen’s skill in wet conditions is nothing new and can be traced back to his formative years in go-karts. While racing in his early teens, he and his father Jos would test relentlessly through all seasons, and on the Belgian/Dutch border where he grew up, a wet track was often waiting for him.

“I feel comfortable [in these conditions], but of course from a young age I’ve been driving together in the wet with my dad and best friends and we’ve been practicing a lot of different scenarios every time,” Verstappen said on Sunday. “I just said to Esteban as well, it’s like back in the day in go-karting, you know, the guys that were good in the wet, they’re good nowadays also in Formula 1.

“I was racing them as well in the go-karting and they were also good in the wet, so it definitely is a thing that you pick up when you’re younger, I think when you practice a lot. I think where we come from, it definitely rains a bit more than maybe in some other places. And yeah, you go out there, you practice, you get more comfortable, and you are definitely tuning your skills to be better. And I think you carry that, and of course, you evolve and become even better. And you use that to your advantage.”

For all the confidence Verstappen had on the brakes around Interlagos, Norris was struggling. The McLaren driver twice ran wide at Turn 1 at restarts, dropping from fourth place during the red flag to sixth place at the finish.

However, Stella suspects the difficulties under braking were car related rather than driver errors, and attempted to shift the blame from Norris.

“We did struggle with locking the tyres, so while we talk about drivers, I think we as a team didn’t give the drivers easy material today to handle in these difficult conditions,” Stella said. “I am sure the drivers will say they are sure they could’ve done better here and there, but also we as a team our car in these conditions was difficult, tricky and sometimes just unpredictable.

“That will definitely be something that we are looking into. It seems to appear in some conditions. I can’t really comment on why — I will give away some [intellectual property] — but it’s a little unpredictable, and for drivers, it’s also difficult to make adaptations from one lap to the other. It comes just unpredictably and I would say this is a technical opportunity for the team rather than something that the drivers need to look into themselves.”

Excuses aside, Norris stressed that Verstappen was simply faster on Sunday and likely would have won by a significant margin had he started from the front of the grid.

“It’s been quite a day,” Norris said. “Not a lot more I can do. We weren’t quick enough. Max was easily quicker than us, so I think if he went from the front [of the grid], he probably would have lapped us. So the pace was good, I think similar to George, but the Red Bull was way faster.”

Verstappen on the brink of a title

After ten races without a grand prix win, Verstappen not only ended his victory drought in Brazil, but is now also on the brink of winning the drivers’ championship at one of the final three races. It was clear on Sunday evening that the significant step toward a fourth consecutive world title had released a great deal of pressure.

“I mean, of course, the win was important,” he said. “I wanted to, of course, win a bit sooner, but yeah, it’s been tough for us. We always kept pushing. We didn’t really understand why the others were so fast in the races, especially. Yeah, I’ve been trying a lot of things to improve the car.

“And I mean, starting P17 this morning, didn’t look like we were going to win the race again. So yeah, it’s an incredible result for us. A massive boost for the team, because honestly, it’s been tough.

“But it is also a big strength of the team to stay calm and just try to work on performance and try to improve our situation. And I’m confident. I’m confident for the last three races that we can fight again, and especially in the race that we will be more competitive.

“So from now, I just want clean races to the end. I’m not thinking about clinching the championship in Vegas or whatever. I just want clean races.”