ROUND 21: 🇧🇷 Brazil
FORMULA 1 LENOVO GRANDE PRÊMIO DE SÃO PAULO 2024
Circuit stats
- Circuit name: Autódromo José Carlos Pace
- First Grand Prix: 1973
- Number of laps: 71
- Circuit Length: 4.309 km
- Race Distance: 305.879 km
- Lap record: 1:10.540 Valtteri Bottas (2018)
- 2023 winner: Max Verstappen
Track Map
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Absolute masterclass from Max. Was just leagues above everyone else.
Reminded me a bit of Miami last year where Perez thought he could fight for the championship and then Verstappen just KO’d Perez and left him limping the rest of the season.
Yeah flawless - well deserved
Also greatly helped by the free pitstop.
There was a bit of luck involved but given the pace he had, he probably would have won anyway.
He also had to remain accident free while overtaking quite a few cars, in a race where there were crashes left right and centre. Sure he got lucky but he also made his own luck by driving an incident free race.
Say what you want about the guy, his attitude, or on track antics oft times, you cannot take today’s drive away from him. I’m not a fan of any of the former, but I concede, begrudgingly, today’s drive proved him to be one of the greats. The belligerent fastest laps at the end of it all were such a statement too. I can’t; I just can’t 😅
True, but he made the most of the opportunity…
Just mighty.
I don’t get the Safety Car for “teams are on the wrong tires”. Some had already switched to full wets. Surely this should be up to the teams to screw up instead of relying on the organizers to save them staying out on inters.
Even if everyone was on full wets, they bring it out for visibility and hydroplaning. I think that’s part of the reason no one switched to full wets. They knew if conditions got bad enough to need them, the SC would come out and there might be a red flag too.
From memory, Tsunoda, Lawson, Hulk, Perez, Zhou, and I think there was 1 more. Their strategy was paying off with lap times 3s faster and that was just getting started. Sad to seen a great strategic choice like this turn to shit because teams know the race director will be overly cautious and protect teams from having to make risky strategy calls.
At least four cars had switched to full wets at the time.
How do you even fix that? At this point driving on the wrong tyre is an optimal strategy. Either:
- Driver stays on inters and calls for red flag cause it’s undrivable
- Driver on inters crashes because they should be on wets, causing a red flag
- someone (like RB today) pits for wets and gets punished because someone else crashed out and caused a red flag
Also I’m not fooled by drivers moaning about how wets suck and have no grip; as long as inters are even 0.1 a lap faster than wets, everyone will want to run inters. I don’t think there’s place for two wet weather compounds since everyone will pick the ‘faster’ one regardles of weather.
Still cannot figure out why Stroll thought it was a good idea to drive through the gravel getting beached after he crashed, he could have made a 180 and stay on the tarmac.
Mate it’s lance stroll
F1 cars have reverse, which would’ve gotten him on safe ground. I think he tried a 180 but there wasn’t enough tarmac to work with with the barriers being so close, so he beaches himself.
Lando bitching about his luck so much when he had half the race to make progress. Instead he just went backwards.
He lost the lead again and went off a few times and the team topped it off with bad strategy calls (+Lando wanted to come in even earlier) has nothing to do with luck i think.
+Lando wanted to come in even earlier
Exactly. He was asking to be pit even before the VSC and is now bitching that the team pit him
I don’t get how you interpret the interview as him bitching about the team call? In the interview, he did acknowledge that he made a few mistakes, but aside from that he thought they did the best they could, and the red flag was the bad luck.
Yeah and in post race interview he said Red Bull’s strategy “was not talent just luck”. Come on dude why so salty.
It is though? I am in no way disregarding Max’s drive, he was brilliant today, but the interview question was specifically about the VSC and red flag, which is 100% luck. Red Bull and Alpine got a free tyre change while every other team lost time and positions for the pit stop.
Plenty of stuff the FIA should fix after this race. They should change the rules to not allow modifications to the car during a red flag in the future for a start.
Edit: You can hear what the interviewer asked here. I don’t think he’s commenting on Max’s drive, just pit strategy. He also did acknowledge the mistakes he made during the race, so there’s that.
The VSC was luck. Pitting neither under the VSC nor under the safety car was a strategic call. Red bull and Alpine both made an educated guess based on the amount rain that there is a high possibility for a red flag. It was lucky but there was plenty of strategy involved. Also all three of them drove brilliantly to put themselves in a position to capitalise. Remember Colapinto binned it on fresh inters while max, ocon and gasly kept it on the track on
won’tworn inters. Saying it was 100% luck is doing a disservice to all 3 of them and their teamsI see your point. I’m absolutely not saying that the drivers and the team did not do a good job, I’m merely saying that the coin flip was lucky. I can see why the teams thought a red flag would be possible if you put it this way. It still is a guess though, and no red flag could still be possible if it weren’t for Colapintos crash, under a safety car no less.
Luck yes. Making most of a lucky break - talent
Yeah? The afterwards wasn’t the point though.
I mean his team royally fucked him lol I’d be salty too
I enjoyed this race but once again we have bizarre race direction and stewarding.
Interlagos is love. Interlagos is life
It’s difficult to root for Norris to catch up to Verstappen when he’s clearly not up to the task in all conditions.
conspiracy hat on: Red Bull is surely right that other teams are cheating with water in the tires. Look what happens when it’s wet so they have no use for it.
… just kidding. Maybe.
So what is going to happen about the mass start infringement¿?
Everyone gets disqualified, except for Sainz as he was still in the pits.
If this happens I will be fucking laughing
Reprimand + €5000 fine for Russell and Norris
ABSOLUTE CINEMA
Oscar is so mature. Admitted that he messed up with Lawson and did not blame luck or anything. He will be a future champion if he keeps improving
If heaven exists, senna must be smiling - he saw one of the GOATs drive his car in tribute and then saw his spiritual successor drive the race of his lifetime at his hometown track
Just we expected of the powerhouse…checks notes…Alpine with the double podium finish. Yes…lol
Max got his pit stop in under a red flag, and that made all the difference.
17 fastest laps and finishing 19 seconds ahead of Ocon begs to differ. Max would’ve won even if he had pitted under the safety car and he would’ve beaten Norris even without a safety car. Nobody had the pace Max had. The red flag made his race easier but it didn’t “make all the difference”.
You can’t ignore that Max was given a free pitstop. Would Max have won even if he hadn’t? Maybe. But after he was given the free pitstop, it was a sure thing that he was going to be in the top 3 ahead of George and Lando.
I agree that the red flag made it easy for him to win, but not because of the free pitstop, it’s because Merc and McLaren made the wrong strategy call.
Everybody knows that if the race conditions require wets there’s a high chance the race is called off. Both Merc and McLaren pitted before the worst rain which means they weren’t waiting to see if the race is called off. Had the race been called off I don’t think people would be looking at Max. I think people would be questioning why Merc and McLaren decided to pit early. The red flag was beneficial to Max because Merc and McLaren made the wrong call by pitting early.
Sheesh. You get open track position in such conditions you can rattle off fast laps. Nobody said he wasn’t a great driver. It just fell his way. Thin skin much?
Did you watch the same race as the rest of us? He didn’t just cruise into first position, he passed half the grid before the red flag.
And pretty ironic calling others thin skinned when you’re the one who can’t accept that Max was phenomenal this race. Every comment trying to downplay his racing.
Sorry I’m not worshipping enough for you.
You can take your hyperbole and get back on the “I hate Max Verstappen” train. It’s pretty obvious you’re one of those people.
Are you for real?
While I’m a Verstappen fan I really want this to stop. It’s not exciting and as an additional thing it might lead teamsvto leave their drivers out in dangerous conditions hoping to gain track position in case of a red flag.
It just worked out for him. Something like this usually happens during monsoon races. If it makes you feel better, he was able to stay out on ragged tires due to excellent car control. Of course, so did Ocon.
What a race !!
Nice to see Verstappen and Red Bull actually celebrating again instead of it just being a rote victory
