Max Verstappen scored an emphatic win at the Brazil GP, battling his way up from P17 on the grid and acing the difficult conditions to cement his 2024 F1 championship lead. His closest title rival and Brazil GP polesitter ended up P6. Alpine scored an unexpected double podium finish, with Esteban Ocon and Pierre Gasly benefiting from a red flag stoppage.
- Verstappen scores first win since Spanish GP in June
- Alpine jumps from ninth to sixth in standings
- Both RB drivers score points
Verstappen’s Brazil GP masterclass
Sao Paulo was a rollercoaster of a round for Verstappen. In Qualifying (postponed to Sunday morning due to poor weather conditions), the Red Bull driver failed to make it out of Q2. Combined with his five-place grid penalty for a power unit change, this meant he had to start the race from P17 on the grid.
With the threat of rain looming, the Brazil GP was off to a rather chaotic start as Lance Stroll crashed on the formation lap. This led to further confusion over the aborted start procedure, and polesitter Lando Norris and a handful of other drivers ended up completing an extra formation lap.
When the race finally started, the rain started pouring and Mercedes’ George Russell had a stronger launch to take the lead ahead of Norris. Verstappen also gained a number of places and was up to P10 on the opening lap itself.
As the rain continued to intensify, Russell and Norris pitted for fresh intermediate tyres during the Virtual Safety Car, triggered by Nico Hulkenberg’s Haas being beached off-track. They re-joined the track in P4 and P5, respectively, but Norris wasted no time and soon overtook Russell to gain another position. But it was Ocon, Verstappen and Gasly who benefited by staying out as the race was red-flagged just a few laps later due to Franco Colapinto’s crash.
Ocon defended his lead well when the race was restarted and even managed to open up a bit of a gap to Verstappen. But he’d have to do it all over again, with the Safety Car being called out on Lap 40 after Carlos Sainz’s crash. This time around, Verstappen had the better restart and snatched the lead from Ocon, while Norris ran wide and dropped down to P7.
From there on, Verstappen delivered a masterclass drive in the wet conditions, setting fastest lap after fastest lap on the course to taking victory by 19.477 seconds. “My emotions have been a rollercoaster with the red flag in qualifying. Starting P17, I knew it was going to be a really tough race, but we stayed out of trouble; we stayed calm, and we were flying – all these things made this possible,” beamed Verstappen, who scored his first win since the Spanish GP in June.
Double podium for Alpine
Both the Alpine drivers held on to the podium spots, giving the team a much-needed reason to celebrate after a difficult season so far. This also has some big consequences in the standings, with Alpine jumping from ninth to sixth in the constructors’ championship.
Russell ended up finishing fourth, followed by Charles Leclerc and Norris. Oscar Piastri crossed the line in seventh place but dropped to eighth after being handed a 10-second time penalty for his collision with Liam Lawson. Both the RB drivers scored points, with Yuki Tsunoda finishing seventh and Lawson ninth. Lewis Hamilton rounded out the top 10.
2024 F1 standings
Verstappen’s win swings the championship pendulum in his favour, and he now leads the standings with an advantage of 62 points over Norris. Leclerc is third overall, 24 points behind Norris.
Next up on the F1 calendar is the Las Vegas GP on November 21-23.
2024 Brazil GP results
