Norris moves closer to the title at Interlagos. Antonelli excellent second, Ferrari sinks

In the twenty-first Grand Prix of 2025, Lando Norris won both Saturday's sprint race and Sunday's race. It is a great return to victory at the Autódromo José Carlos Pace in Interlagos for the McLaren F1 Team, since 2012, the year of the last signing for the Woking stable thanks to one of the sport's last gentlemen, Jenson Button.

With him on the podium were Andrea Kimi Antonelli and Max Verstappen. For the Bolognese driver this is great news: in the same year that he made his Formula 1 debut, while still in high school, he has already brought home a third and a second place. Despite some difficulties in the middle stages of the season, his contract was reconfirmed and his morale also benefited: today was the best result of his career for him. Something to lick one's chops about, especially thinking about the misfortunes of others, especially the double retirement of Scuderia Ferrari.

Max Verstappen's third place, on the other hand, is bitter-sweet news. On the one hand it is something exceptional: only eight drivers in history have managed to start from the pits and finish on the podium. He did it as a desperate move: after a 16th place qualifying, his team decided it was time to replace the engine and transmission, receiving a penalty for exceeding the number of changes of those components in the current season. It cannot be said that it did not go well or that it did not fight. It's just that, due to the clear superiority of his rivals - meaning the McLarens who already hold the constructors' title - he was unable to catch up with the two leaders in the drivers' classification on this lap either, but only limited the damage. Or rather: he only caught up with Oscar Piastri, while Norris, who had already been first for weeks, continued his solitary race. Fate seems to have been fair to Piastri, however, who lost ground on the Dutchman but - on the other hand - a divine punishment was surely wished on him by many.

In the early stages of the race, in fact, after a smooth start and stable weather conditions, no one would have doubted Norris' breakaway, who had already started on pole. But the first pursuers were also initially quiet, surprisingly. A quietness that was only apparent, however: a safety car, due to a bad exit against the wall, completely autonomous, by Gabriel Bortoleto, was enough to heavily reshuffle the cards. It was there that the highlight of the whole Sunday took place: Piastri, at the restart, tried to play it as best he could given that he theoretically had to recover at least three positions, but clumsily "hooked" the blameless Antonelli who in turn touched Charles Leclerc very badly. To the Ferrarista goes the worst fate: off track and irreparable damage to wheel and suspension. The beginning of the disaster for Maranello: not much later Lewis Hamilton crashes into an opponent, also damaging his own wing. After serving a five-second penalty in the pits, he opts to retire. Another sad page for the Ferraristi and especially for Hamilton's morale, while Leclerc, at least today, has nothing to feel guilty about.

The Ferrari debacle also has another dimension. Verstappen, with his 15 points as the almost always lone wandering rider, allows Red Bull Racing to leapfrog Ferrari into third place in the Constructors' Championship. Looking ahead to the end of the year, with three races left, it is worth pointing out that it is virtually impossible for the Maranello stable to do worse than this in this area, given that the immediate pursuer in fifth place, Williams Racing, has an unbridgeable gap in the region of two hundred and fifty points. This 'sweetener' for Verstappen also goes further to aggravate the discontent of Maranello's seven-time British champion, who held the not inconsiderable and rare record of having reached the podium after a start from the pit lane since 2014.