Automobilism

Formula 1, Verstappen wins and secures the World Championship

Rain fell on Interlagos and determined the outcome of the race. Second Ocon, third Gasly

3 November 2024

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There was no spatula, bulldozer, scraper, square or trowel that could have done as much to level the performance of Formula 1 today as rain. So feared, so hated, so dangerous in racing. So much desired and so much exploited, however, by champions with a capital C. And this time there was no doubt about who knew how to manage it in their favour as the greats among the greats.

The 2024 Formula 1 Brazilian Grand Prix was a rollercoaster of emotions, full of unexpected twists and turns. Max Verstappen, who started from an astonishing 17th position, delivered a masterful performance and secured a sensational victory, overturning expectations of the season finale for the world title. After a horrendous qualifying session, he almost came back from the bottom and won, with repeated fastest laps and an average nine-tenths gap on his direct pursuers. He taught Norris a masterful lesson and now has a lead that, in the next three Grands Prix, he could almost close to his heart's content.

So few

It was raced in Brazil, so associations with Senna were wasted: he and Senna, but also Schumacher, were the rain wizards of the second half of Formula 1 history. With performances like the one seen at Interlagos in the 2024 edition, however, Max Verstappen is also slowly beginning to deserve this glorious title. At the culmination of a complex and unpredictable weekend, he put a lot of his own into it. His historical fiancée, Nelson Piquet's daughter, could not hold back her tears. Perhaps she has never seen her beloved excel so well, so indelibly, in front of her home crowd, who know and still love engines despite the fact that more than fifteen years have passed since the last great deeds of a compatriot, Felipe Massa in his Ferrari days.

Verstappen takes home victory number 62 in his career in the best way, with perfect timing to make people talk about him, after so much talk about his team, from managers to technicians, from performance to 'shenanigans'. A year that started well and then, since 23 June, ten races ago, no wins. And so a lead that, month by month, was in danger of being seriously compromised. Almost to the point of being given up for dead, not yet for arithmetic but from a moral point of view. Because everything happened last summer: McLaren discovered itself incisive and, in alternate races, even unbeatable. And recently, among other things, Ferrari had also reawakened, which, after the fine exploits of Australia and Monte Carlo, had been able to win at Monza and then also at Austin and Mexico City.

Turning to the Reds, it was known that the track was not one of the most suitable, but not even luck tried to particularly help someone from Maranello: Leclerc's third place in the Sprint, won by Norris followed by Piastri, was not enough to console the team after two consecutive victories which Charles was only able to follow up with a fifth today, while Sainz even took a slip. Four other drivers also excluded themselves due to a very wet track, conditioning the race for many: in fact, if the first safety car delayed the start by a good 17 minutes, the fault of a 'usual' Stroll who spun before the start, when the race started a second interruption favoured, among others, Verstappen, with the bonus of a 'free' pit-stop.

Luck favours the bold

But fortune, as we know, favours the bold. Hence the construction of an unprecedented podium, impossible until a few months ago, which redeems the two drivers short of heavy points throughout the season. For both a great satisfaction and, by far, the second best result in the history of this team, which follows Ocon's overflowing performance, winner in Hungary in 2021. But this performance has a special flavour and significance: it is part of the 'restoration' of Flavio Briatore who, since the spring, has begun to revolutionise the team and make it increasingly independent from the parent company. The "tenths" that were still missing from the engine, however, were no longer needed today, thanks to the rain, thanks precisely to the greater "meritocracy" that a situation of heavy rain and a totally damp track is able to restore. But which the recent regulatory dictates in favour of safety at all costs had almost made us forget.

The race situations in a confrontation like the one at Interlagos have changed so much that there is no point in even listing them, but the great thing is to have been able to have the feeling that so many could play it. The wet and wild scenario showed the limits of someone who has never become a champion, and not by chance: Norris in fact made a big mistake at the start, misleading not one but all his colleagues who followed him, moving in an unexpected way when he had to stand still because the start would be delayed. And yet the Englishman, who until the morning could have dreamed of catching Verstappen, having won a sprint race and managed to disentangle himself as far as the best time in a qualifying characterised by ribbon accidents (including excellent names, so much so that he saw Tsunoda climb up to third place), this afternoon burnt a gap contained 'only' in twenty-nine points, reversing the balance of power: Verstappen, if he wins, in fact, could already crown himself four times world champion in the next Las Vegas Grand Prix.

Russell's excellent performance

Between lights and shadows, however, one cannot forget the excellent performance of Russell who, for a while, seemed the designated ruler of this race. He too, like Flavio's two standard bearers, over twenty seconds behind Max. But infinitely better than Hamilton who, already dormant since Saturday, suffered even too much for his standards: it seems a miracle to see him tenth, with a point brought home. In between: Leclerc fifth, still ahead of Norris. Praise to Tsunoda, still able to keep behind Piastri's second McLaren, and to his partner Lawson, ninth. Two single-seaters from Faenza in the points and ahead even of a seven-time champion is not bad, thinking that Perez acted as a "guinea pig" to test the tyres in advance and in favour of Verstappen.

Not so good for Alonso, who, with a bad backache, strained by the poor state of the road surface, was on the verge of retiring, but at least he finished penultimate, ahead of Zhou and no less than five retirees.

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