the 2025 são paulo grand prix: verstappen's masterclass, ferrari tragedy and the 'norris era'
verstappen goes from the pit lane to the podium, both ferraris retire, and norris leaves brazil 24 points clear in the championship.
as i said in the sprint post, são paulo is one of the most entertaining circuits on the calendar, and being round 21 of 24, it nearly always matters for the championship too.
the highlight of the weekend was max verstappen. he qualified P16 with no grip, his first ever Q1 exit on pure pace. lando norris took pole yet again in his flawless weekend, ahead of kimi antonelli, charles leclerc and oscar piastri, with isack hadjar an amazing P5.
before the race we got the drivers’ parade. like miami, every team had its own little kit car, and (obviously) they raced them. williams stood out: carlos sainz and alex albon had a footrace the second they realized only one of them could drive (albon won), then took a cheeky shortcut that skipped most of the lap. the aston martin broke down next to a laughing norris. ferrari finished near the front of the “race”, so surely that meant success in the real one, right?
red bull decided to start verstappen from the pit lane with a new power unit and setup. after all, you’d rather start dead last with faster parts than near the back with old machinery.
the start was surprisingly clean until home hero gabriel bortoleto ended up in the wall on lap 1 after contact with lance stroll. the fans have now watched him crash in both the sprint and the grand prix, which is just depressing. lewis hamilton then ran into the back of franco colapinto, lost his front wing and eventually retired with floor damage.
at the safety car restart piastri dived for the inside of turn 1, where antonelli didn’t leave him enough room. piastri locked up and hit antonelli, who was knocked into leclerc like a bumper car. leclerc lost his front-left wheel and was out, which made the drivers’ parade ferrari’s only success of the weekend.
it has been controversial, but i firmly believe kimi was to blame, since he left oscar no space. the FIA disagreed and gave oscar a 10-second penalty.
meanwhile verstappen had climbed to P13 when a puncture forced him to pit under the VSC, dropping him back to last. he carved through the field anyway, was briefly leading before his final stop, and came out P4 on fresh softs. he went around the outside of russell into turn 1 and chased down antonelli, falling 0.3 seconds short. did we expect anything less?
norris won by 10 seconds, antonelli took P2 (only his second podium, and his best result yet) and verstappen finished P3 from the pit lane. both racing bulls scored too (lawson P7, hadjar P8).
norris now leads the championship by 24 points, and verstappen is 25 behind piastri. after a mediocre first half of the year, lando has been driving that mclaren superbly since austin. oscar, who had led since april, has had a disastrous second-half slump and let norris straight past.
this weekend is the third ever las vegas grand prix. unfortunately, max could be out of the title fight by the end of it: if norris wins and max finishes P3 or lower, it’s over. so he pretty much has to win to keep a decent shot. we’ll see how it goes, and i’ll see you in the next article.