Charles Leclerc’s pre-race crash at the Sao Paulo Grand Prix was due to an electronics issue triggering a power unit shutdown. The Ferrari driver was set to start from second place but on the formation lap he crashed at Turn 6 and damaged the car …
Charles Leclerc’s pre-race crash at the Sao Paulo Grand Prix was due to an electronics issue triggering a power unit shutdown.
The Ferrari driver was set to start from second place but on the formation lap he crashed at Turn 6 and damaged the car against the barrier. Leclerc tried to return to the pits but the car had to be parked just one corner later, and after Leclerc blamed a hydraulics issue at the time, team principal Frederic Vasseur says it was actually triggered by another problem.
“It’s a system issue where the system shut off the hydraulics and engine,” Vasseur said. “The result of the [issue] from the system, we don’t know yet because the car is not back, but it was more an electronic problem.
“It’s very frustrating for Charles and for the team, but the issue is that, strategically over the weekend, we put all the effort into the long run to save tires — we didn’t use new tires for the [sprint]…we put everything on the long one and we didn’t take the start. It’s frustrating, but it was more than disappointing. I’m sure that my team will be back and we will be focused on Vegas.”
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Leclerc himself explained how the matter unfolded from behind the wheel, and admits the bad luck he has been experiencing this season — including a disqualification in Austin just two weeks ago — leaves him keen for the year to end.
“I turned into Turn 6, everything was fine, and then you can see I basically lost the wheel because there was no power steering anymore so the steering feels very stiff, and then I go straight, then the engine stopped for safety reasons which made the rear wheels lock, which made me spin,” Leclerc said. “Then I touched the wall. I started to start the car again, I did 20 meters and then exactly the same thing happened, so that’s it. It’s a sudden thing. I’ve never had that before.
“I don’t know what to do anymore. Obviously it’s been a season to forget. There’s been quite a few races where I felt I was on it and then for some reason or another it wasn’t the result I wanted and today was part of them. So of course the frustration is big today, but it’s like this.
“Now I need to get over it and focus on the last two races which are still important … I cannot wait for it to be next year.”
Fernando Alonso says it was easier to defend in some of his iconic 2005 races than against Sergio Perez late in the Sao Paulo Grand Prix. The two-time world champion famously held off Michael Schumacher for multiple laps at Imola in 2005 to win for …
Fernando Alonso says it was easier to defend in some of his iconic 2005 races than against Sergio Perez late in the Sao Paulo Grand Prix.
The two-time world champion famously held off Michael Schumacher for multiple laps at Imola in 2005 to win for Renault, with the pair locked together for the latter stages of the race. At Interlagos, Alonso pulled off a similar feat against Perez before losing out starting the penultimate lap, only to re-pass the Red Bull and keep Perez at bay by 0.053s for third place.
“It was easier in 2005, because no DRS,” Alonso said. “That was probably easier. Now, with DRS…and yeah, things are a little bit different and you have to play things a little bit different as well. Tire management is also very different than back then, when you can maybe push the tire all the way.
“[Although] if in 2005 you lose the position, then it’s bye-bye, you cannot recover, and here I had another chance. It has been introduced to provide a little bit better show, and today is a good example of that. You get overtaken two laps to the end, then you have another chance, especially here in Brazil.
“We saw yesterday as well, when there is an overtaking done into Turn 1, there is a possibility — a strong possibility — into Turn 4 that someone will get it back, the position. That’s why we see some very nice battles and races always in Interlagos.
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“It has been a spectacular weekend as always here in Brazil. Sometimes it’s the weather providing this great show. I think this weekend, without any rain or any weather, we saw incredible races. There is something in this track that gives a perfect opportunity for Formula 1 to shine, and it was nice.”
Alonso says the key to his success against Perez was to keep the Red Bull driver facing dirty air from the Aston Martin as often as possible.
“It was a very intense race. There was no time to relax, a very strategic race as well, saving the tires, saving the battery always in case you needed on a DRS opportunity for Checo.
“Honestly I thought that I had things under control in the last stint, until maybe five laps to the end where I started pushing a bit more. I had more juice in the tires and I thought everything was fine. Then Checo was playing the same game. He had a good tire at the end of the race. He overtook me two laps to the end, and I thought, ‘OK, it’s gone.’ Then I had one more chance, and it was enough.
“I think when you run just in front of another car, you have better downforce, you have clean air. That was maybe good for me in terms of tire management, and he was struggling a little bit to go into Turn 10, 11 and 12 behind another car. That was the game we were playing; those three corners were crucial for an overtaking opportunity. Being the car in front, maybe you have better grip always.”
The Sao Paulo Grand Prix was a “mind-boggling weekend to understand” for Mercedes due to a lack of performance that yielded just four points on Sunday. George Russell finished fourth in the Sprint but struggled more than he expected, with Lewis …
The Sao Paulo Grand Prix was a “mind-boggling weekend to understand” for Mercedes due to a lack of performance that yielded just four points on Sunday.
George Russell finished fourth in the Sprint but struggled more than he expected, with Lewis Hamilton limited to seventh on Saturday. The main race was even more surprising, with Russell slipping back to tenth before retiring, and Hamilton limping home in eighth having run third early on.
“Mind-boggling weekend to understand,” Russell said. “Had relatively high expectations and just absolutely no pace at all. Same car as the last five races, so clearly we’ve got something wrong with the tires, and in a Sprint race weekend when you get it wrong you can’t make amends for those issues.
“I mean…it’s…so many question marks. It’s the same car we had since Austin, where the car’s been capable of podiums every race – even before then, Singapore, Qatar, capable of podiums. This is clearly a substantial, one-off event. We need to understand what we’ve got wrong because right now we don’t really know.”
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Russell says the high downforce setup approach Mercedes took didn’t provide it with any of the expected gains.
“Definitely a sitting duck,” he said. “The choice we made to run a bit more downforce — when you run more downforce you’re meant to gain the speed through the corners, keep the tires under control, and that wasn’t the case. We didn’t have the benefit; we only had the negatives.”
Teammate Hamilton was also downbeat, although says he had expected such a performance after the way the rest of the weekend had panned out.
“I knew that we would have a relatively difficult day,” Hamilton said. “Nothing changed in the car from yesterday to today, so I knew it would be a tough one. Yesterday I just ate through the tires with an unexpected lack of pace. I think I drove better today in terms of making my stints, but we were just slower.
“My guess is that the floor’s not working. The floor’s just not sucking us down, so that just pushed us to go to a higher wing. We’re just massively draggy on the straights. We’re losing so much time on the straights, there’s nothing I could do about it. We were just sliding through the corners, so we have to look into why that is the case on this rough circuit.”
Max Verstappen claimed a controlled victory at the Sao Paulo Grand Prix after mastering two race starts within four laps, leading home an on-form Lando Norris, while Fernando Alonso staged a masterclass of his own to complete the podium, holding off …
Max Verstappen claimed a controlled victory at the Sao Paulo Grand Prix after mastering two race starts within four laps, leading home an on-form Lando Norris, while Fernando Alonso staged a masterclass of his own to complete the podium, holding off Sergio Perez.
The high-attrition race started with Charles Leclerc, Verstappen’s fellow front-row starter, crashing out of the formation lap with a hydraulics failure. The Ferrari driver was able to roll his car off the road to avoid delaying the start, but the grand prix lasted less than one lap before being put behind the safety car for a start-line crash.
Nico Hulkenberg tagged Alex Albon’s left-rear tire as they jockeyed for position on the outside edge of the circuit, sending the Williams thumping into Kevin Magnussen in the sister Haas car ahead.
Albon and Magnussen careened out of control into the barriers at the first turn, tagging Oscar Piastri’s McLaren along the way. The shower of debris, including a stray tire carcass, struck Daniel Ricciardo’s AlphaTauri, sending both Australians back to their garages for repairs and putting them a lap down.
The big gainers from the chaos were Norris, who got a sizzling start to slot into second behind the untroubled Verstappen, and Lewis Hamilton, who swept around the outside of the pack to take third.
Big starts from Norris and Hamilton were quickly overshadowed by chaos behind. Andy Hone/Motorsport Images
The race was red flagged to sweep the front straight clear of carbon fiber and to repair the barriers, and Verstappen got a second good launch when the race restarted around half an hour later on lap 4. But Norris matched the Dutchman off the line and menaced in the opening laps, clinging to the Red Bull Racing gearbox ahead and building himself up to a lunge for the lead on lap 8.
The Briton got a strong run up the hill to consider a move into Turn 1, and good traction through the esses launched him through the DRS zone and onto Verstappen’s outside into Turn 4. The champion was wise to the move, however, and position his car perfectly to claim the apex, shutting the door and retaining the lead.
Having used the best of his tires in an instant, Norris was unable to redouble his efforts on the next lap, allowing Verstappen to ease to a slender but decisive advantage.
They pitted on the same lap for their first tire changes, and Verstappen pre-empted the second round of stops with 15 laps remaining to stretch his margin to a comfortable 8.2s by the end of the race.
“The whole race was about the management of the tires,” he said. “We were good on every tire, but in the middle stint we could create a bit of a gap. It was a very strong day.”
Norris scored a consolation point for fastest lap of the race, setting a purple time fresh from his finals top more than 0.9s quicker than Verstappen’s best effort.
“It couldn’t have gone much better, to be honest,” he said. “We had good pace, similar to yesterday, which was the main thing. P2 is as good as we can get nowadays and for the time being.”
The battle for third between Alonso and Perez brought the race to life in the closing stages. Zak Mauger/Motorsport Images
Alonso saw off Perez for third place in a memorable last-stint battle for the podium.
Perez was up to sixth after the second standing restart before picking off the ailing Mercedes cars to place himself behind Alonso with 20 laps to go.
Despite fielding a faster car, it took until the penultimate lap for Perez to get the required launch out of Juncao to DRS his way past the Aston Martin into the first turn, but on the final lap he made a critical error on the brakes into the esses, carrying himself a little deep and compromising his exit.
Alonso pounced on his final chance, getting down Perez’s inside at the Turn 4 and squeezing him wide.
Perez’s last chance was up the hill, and he again got a strong launch out of Juncao to rapidly close on the Aston, but he was beaten by the checkered flag, with a photo finish handing Alonso third place by just 0.053s, albeit 34s down on leader Verstappen.
“When he passed me two laps to the end I thought it was gone,” he said. “This is a phenomenal result for the team. We’ve been struggling the last couple of months. We keep fighting until the last lap.”
Perez finished ahead of Lance Stroll and Carlos Sainz, the last-remining Ferrari driver hobbled by downshift problems in the final stint.
Pierre Gasly beat Hamilton in a straight fight despite the Briton running third on the opening lap of the race. The Mercedes car was crippled by chronic tire usage that left Hamilton and teammate George Russell defenselessly sliding backwards all afternoon before the latter retired with an overheating power unit.
Yuki Tsunoda moved AlphaTauri into outright eighth in the constructors standings in ninth ahead of Esteban Ocon in 10th, both benefitting from dual Alfa Romeo retirements due to related engine problems.
Logan Sargeant beat Nico Hulkenberg to 11th and 12th, while Ricciardo beat Piastri in their private battle at the back, both compromised by first-lap damage.
Lando Norris believes he might have been too conservative at the start of the Sprint and that cost him the lead at the Sao Paulo Grand Prix. The McLaren driver qualified on pole for the Sprint race but after getting a better initial launch than Max …
Lando Norris believes he might have been too conservative at the start of the Sprint and that cost him the lead at the Sao Paulo Grand Prix.
The McLaren driver qualified on pole for the Sprint race but after getting a better initial launch than Max Verstappen it was the Red Bull that soon pulled alongside to take the lead into Turn 1. Norris also lost out to George Russell on the opening lap before recovering to finish second, and he thinks he was too cautious as part of the start phase.
“I have to review it, it’s something to look back on to,” Norris said. “My initial start was good but the second phase of the launch… maybe I was just a bit conservative. I don’t think I had any wheelspin. I was just a little bit on the safe side.
“Obviously not what I wanted and then always difficult to manage the tires as much as you want when you’re in second, but still a good race. It was still good fun. I was caught sleeping a little bit with George. He was pushing a lot on the opening couple of laps and I feel like maybe he paid the price quite heavily on lap three and four and five and six and seven and eight, all the way to the end.
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“I tried then to get into the DRS of Max. I thought if I had an opportunity, I would try and get it early on, so I could kind of control the race a little bit more from out front and in some cleaner air. I never quite got close enough and I struggled just a little bit too much, especially in the last five laps of the race, to look after the tires as much as Max was able to do. Nevertheless a strong race and good points.”
Starting from sixth on Sunday, Norris says the higher level of tire degradation doesn’t concern him despite having to fight through if he wants to finish on the podium.
“No, I’m not concerned,” he said. “If anything, encouraged a lot with how good our pace was today. We’re not fighting necessarily Max. I think we’re talking about competing against one of the best drivers in one of the best cars that’s ever been in Formula 1.
“We’re not going to be suddenly fighting a Red Bull in a track which we almost didn’t expect to be as good as it has been again. Many good surprises and a lot of positives for us. Of course, tomorrow, I’ll try again but I’ll have to do a bit more overtaking.”
Fernando Alonso believes his clash with Esteban Ocon cost him a chance of points in the Sprint, but Aston Martin’s pace bodes well for the Sao Paulo Grand Prix. Ocon was on a flying lap and passing Alonso – on a slow lap and to the outside of the …
Fernando Alonso believes his clash with Esteban Ocon cost him a chance of points in the Sprint, but Aston Martin’s pace bodes well for the Sao Paulo Grand Prix.
Ocon was on a flying lap and passing Alonso — on a slow lap and to the outside of the track — at Turn 3 when the Frenchman had a snap of oversteer. The correction saw him run wide and hit Alonso’s front left wheel, causing Ocon to crash heavily and damaging the Aston Martin to the extent it couldn’t run again after the end of SQ1.
Starting the Sprint from 15th, Alonso climbed to 11th with some strong overtakes and says it shows more was possible with a clean day.
“Yes, it was [frustrating] because I think we had good pace,” Alonso said. “Now in the race, we saw that we were fast, so we lost a possibility to score a few points. But it is [what] it is. Better that it happened today and not in the main qualifying yesterday. So let’s see tomorrow in the race if we’re going to score big points.”
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The stewards investigated the Sprint Shootout collision and opted to take no further action against either driver, with Alonso feeling both were unlucky.
“I don’t think it could go either way,” the Spaniard said. “I think he lost the car, and unfortunately I was in the wrong place in the wrong moment. But without losing the car, you never go there. But you know, this is the way it is.”
While Alonso is confident the pace shown on Saturday bodes well for Sunday’s grand prix when he will start fourth behind teammate Lance Stroll, he says the psychological boost for Aston Martin could be just as important regardless of the weekend’s final result.
“It was promising,” he said. “Definitely we have to execute a good race tomorrow without any mistakes. Hopefully a good start with the strategy, and we can go through the first couple of laps without any incident, then let’s see the pace. If it’s enough to finish in the top five, top six, whatever, we will take it.
“I think especially after this race we have some kind of relief, some weight off the shoulders of some people, and going into the right direction is a good boost for everyone in the factory. We really needed this type of performance here in Brazil.
“If we had another weekend struggling, maybe that was a little bit worrying, but we always kept pragmatic and doing some tests, some experiments, even if they were painful, and hopefully we have a lot of data now to analyze everything.”
Mercedes’ lack of performance in the Sprint at the Sao Paulo Grand Prix showed the team “clearly got something wrong,” according to George Russell. Interlagos was expected to suit Mercedes after Russell’s double victory across a Sprint weekend last …
Mercedes’ lack of performance in the Sprint at the Sao Paulo Grand Prix showed the team “clearly got something wrong,” according to George Russell.
Interlagos was expected to suit Mercedes after Russell’s double victory across a Sprint weekend last season, and despite only qualifying fourth on Saturday he quickly climbed to second on the opening lap. From there Russell went backwards and finished fourth, some 26s behind race-winner Max Verstappen and over 20s behind Lando Norris.
“Really unexpected,” Russell said. “We didn’t expect to be the fastest; we thought we’d be a couple of tenths behind Max, maybe similar pace to Lando, but clearly we got something wrong today. As always it’s down to tires — tires just dropped off. Story of everybody’s season, and we need to rectify it because that was a disappointing one.
“We know how sensitive the tires are to the conditions. If it’s going to be four or five degrees colder tomorrow, that might transform everything. Not all is lost yet. I guess everybody in the paddock wished they understood it, but it’s a bit of black magic.”
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While Russell expected it to be tough to hold off cars that were within DRS range, he says that weakness should have made tire usage a strength for Mercedes.
“We’re the slowest on the straight at the moment, so we’re very vulnerable if anybody gets DRS behind us,” he said. “We knew that was going to be the case, but that wasn’t the reason for our lack of pace. If anything, being on probably a bit more downforce than everybody else, we were expecting to have less tire deg. We really need to understand what went wrong.”
Things were even worse for teammate Lewis Hamilton who slipped to seventh and a little over half a second clear of Daniel Ricciardo in ninth.
“It was a very tough race,” Hamilton said. “I think we got a good start, then balance… We tried to get right balance of the wing. Just a lot of understeer, snap oversteer and tires just dropped off. In the middle sector, huge understeer. I don’t know whether we got setup wrong… We probably got setup wrong but it is what it is.
“It’s not frustrating [that the car can’t be changed]. It’s frustrating that the car is the way it is.
“The last couple of races we’ve been excited that we’ve been progressing. It’s been really positive to see, and we come to another track and then you have the worst deg that you’ve had for ages. So it’s like you don’t know what to expect, but only a couple more races with this car then it’s gone so I’ll be happy … This year you’re just counting down the days, trying to enjoy every day.”
Max Verstappen won the Sprint at the Sao Paulo Grand Prix, beating pole-sitter Lando Norris off the line and cruising to victory. Norris appeared to get a good launch from pole, but in the second phase of the start Verstappen eased alongside to be …
Max Verstappen won the Sprint at the Sao Paulo Grand Prix, beating pole-sitter Lando Norris off the line and cruising to victory.
Norris appeared to get a good launch from pole, but in the second phase of the start Verstappen eased alongside to be able to take the lead into Turn 1. The McLaren driver then admitted he was “caught sleeping” by George Russell who passed him for second in the middle sector, while Lewis Hamilton moved up to fourth with a clinical pass around the outside of Sergio Perez at Turn 4.
That was as good as it got for the Mercedes pair, though, as Hamilton was overtaken by Perez into Turn 1 on lap four and then Norris got Russell using DRS into the same corner one lap later and quickly dropped his fellow Brit.
At that point it looked like Norris could still make a race of it — with the Haas pair and Logan Sargeant the only drivers not on soft tires — as he edged back towards Verstappen, cutting a 2s gap to 1.1s at one stage but then seeing the triple world champion respond to pull away and win by over four seconds.
Perez cleared Russell for third place on lap 10 out of 24 — having twice swapped places two laps earlier — and never looked in danger after that, securing his first top three in any race since Monza in September but finishing over 9s behind Norris in a sign of how quick the top two had been.
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Although Russell settled in and had a buffer to his teammate to secure fourth, behind him Hamilton was unable to look after his rear tires enough to remain fifth. Having been over 2.5s clear of Charles Leclerc beyond the halfway point, the gap rapidly shrunk in the closing stages and Leclerc took fifth with four laps to go. Hamilton also couldn’t keep Yuki Tsunoda at bay one lap later, as AlphaTauri scored points in a Sprint event for the first time.
Daniel Ricciardo ended up just outside the points after a thrilling fight with Carlos Sainz eventually led to Oscar Piastri opportunistically jumping his fellow Australian, and by the time Ricciardo regained the spot he was left with a little too much to do in the closing stages. Finally in DRS range and in with a chance of overtaking Sainz, Ricciardo was left frustrated as the Ferrari picked up DRS from Hamilton on the final lap to hold him off to the line.
Further back, both Aston Martin drivers showed impressive pace to fight back from a tough Sprint Shootout — where Fernando Alonso collided with Esteban Ocon — and end up just outside the top ten after some high quality fighting with Pierre Gasly, boding well for their chances of holding onto big points from the second row on Sunday.
All 20 cars finished without major incident or damage, although the Haas medium-tire experiment failed to pay off as Kevin Magnussen and Nico Hulkenberg slipped to 16th and 18th respectively.
Haas has lodged a petition for a right to review the result of the United States Grand Prix, nearly two weeks after the race. Teams are allowed up to 14 days to lodge such a review, and Haas must convince the FIA that it has a significant and …
Haas has lodged a petition for a right to review the result of the United States Grand Prix, nearly two weeks after the race.
Teams are allowed up to 14 days to lodge such a review, and Haas must convince the FIA that it has a significant and relevant new element that was not available to the stewards at the time the decision was made. RACER understands the right of review request is based on track limits violations that went unpunished in the race at Circuit of The Americas.
It is understood at the time that another team other than Haas had flagged a number of track limits to the stewards relating to Sergio Perez — who was ultimately classified fourth after the disqualifications of Lewis Hamilton and Charles Leclerc — but the matter was not taken further.
Alex Albon was also investigated for leaving the track after already getting a 5s time penalty for such an infringement, but the stewards stated after the race: “The evidence at hand is not sufficient to accurately and consistently conclude that any breaches occurred and therefore take no further action.”
Haas finished with a car in 11th in the form of Nico Hulkenberg at COTA, just over 3s behind Albon in ninth.
The FIA has yet to state when Haas’ petition will be heard. Should the team convince the governing body of its new evidence, then a separate investigation will be opened into the matter.
George Russell, Esteban Ocon and Pierre Gasly have all been handed two-place grid penalties for impeding other cars at the pit exit in qualifying for the Sao Paulo Grand Prix. The FIA had changed the regulations to mandate a maximum delta time …
George Russell, Esteban Ocon and Pierre Gasly have all been handed two-place grid penalties for impeding other cars at the pit exit in qualifying for the Sao Paulo Grand Prix.
The FIA had changed the regulations to mandate a maximum delta time between Safety Car Line 2 — at the pit exit — and Safety Car Line 1 — at the pit entry — from the Singapore Grand Prix onwards to reduce the risks of drivers backing up in the final sector to create gaps in qualifying. This served to move the issue of cars slowing to the pit exit — as seen in Mexico last week — so the race director’s notes in Brazil made clear that any car going slowly in the pit lane had to move fully to the left to allow others to overtake if they wish.
However, with a long and narrow pit exit at Interlagos, there were multiple incidents of potential impeding and Russell, Ocon and Gasly all received the same grid penalty for preventing others from passing.
“[When] exiting the pits, preparing for an out lap, [the drivers in question] went slow to create a gap for a clear lap, but did not manage to stay completely to the left,” the stewards’ decision read. “As a result, following car(s) were not able to overtake, as intended by the Race Director’s instructions. This clearly violates the wording and the spirit of item 14 of the Race Director’s Event Notes.”
The penalties apply to the grand prix on Sunday — rather than the Sprint on Saturday — as the incidents occurred in qualifying for the main race. Russell was the highest-placed of the trio originally, so he drops from sixth to eighth on the grid. Ocon and Gasly had qualified next to each other and are demoted to 14th and 15th respectively.
