Brazilian Grand Prix/Grande Prêmio de São Paulo, 2023

[bjohnsonsmith]

Brazilian Grand Prix/Grande Prêmio de São Paulo, 2023

BR seems to be preoccupied, so I thought I'd get the race thread going, as qualifying for the Grand Prix has happened.

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This weekend's Grand Prix, includes the final sprint race of the season.
Pirelli will be bringing C2, C3, and C4 tyres to Brazil.

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Brief History
The Brazilian GP was first held at Interlagos in 1972 as a non championship race. It was won by Argentine driver Carlos Reutemann in a Brabham-Ford. Since then São Paulo has hosted the Grand Prix every year, except for 1978 and from 1981 - '89, when it was held at Jacarepaguá, Rio de Janeiro.

Last Year's Winner - Sprint Race
George Russell. Mercedes, 24 Laps, Time 30:11.307

Last Year's Winner - Grand Prix
George Russell, Mercedes, 71 Laps, Time 1:38:34.044

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Some Trivia:
Driver with most wins
Alain Prost: 1982, 1984, 1985, 1987, 1988, 1990

Team with most wins
McLaren: 1974, 1984, 1985, 1987, 1988, 1991, 1993, 1998, 1999, 2001, 2005, 2012

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Brief Track History
The track was inaugurated on 12 May 1940. Since then it has undergone a number of layout changes.

Current layout.


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Qualifying results for Sunday's Grand Prix
Verstappen takes pole, benefiting from going out first, after Q3 was red flagged, when a massive rain storm hit the track. Both Aston-Martin drivers also benefited but McLaren's Oscar Piastri got caught out, spinning off the track to qualify 10th.

[Tourer]

Nice work bjohn.

Qualifying certainly mixed up the 10 fastest, should make for an interesting race (early laps at least) & of course the weather could jump in again.

Now we head off to Saturday & see what happens in sprintworld.

[E.B]

Russel Ocon Gasly and Perez were called up to the headmaster's study to answer charges of impeding.... not keeping to the left on the pitlane exit and per the RD updates issued pre event following the Mexico nonsense..

Russell Gasly and Ocon were given 2 places each for impeding whilst Perez was cleared and seen as victim rather than culprit. (He was behind the other three.)

So Russell drops for the main race from 6th > 8th, with Ocon and Gasly to 14th and 15th respectively.

The wind seemed to cause more trouble in Q3 than the rain, and Sergio was affected by a yellow for Piastri on his flying lap before the session was red flagged and not restarted with justover 4 minutes to go.

Edit: One of the grandstands collapsed in the wind. https://t.co/KZTAGU7vR7

[Sandgroper]

The pit lane exit deal is a disaster. Im sure Max didnt enjoy having to go on the grass with new tyres.

All said and done, not just Max but anyone who got held up or boxed in have every reason to be p1ssed !

[Teretonga]

Yuki was faster in Mexico at one point and outqualified Daniel in Brazil.
None of that actually means anything.
The only way to evaluate the merits of either is to compare them across the last five races and see what the trends, strengths and weaknesses appear to be.

[Akrapovic]

Not sure how Ocon can blame Fernando for that incident. He was having his own accident and Alonso just happened to exist in the space Ocon was having his crash lol

[fergus_r]

It's just the way these drivers are engineered. It's always someone else's, or something's, fault other than their own.

[bjohnsonsmith]

Grosjean, Baku 2018: ''I think Ericsson hit us.''

[peebee2]

Originally Posted by Akrapovic

Not sure how Ocon can blame Fernando for that incident. He was having his own accident and Alonso just happened to exist in the space Ocon was having his crash lol

Ocon would pretty much tell you that he's never made a mistake.

[Lancsbreaker]

Well the sprint race was certainly pretty frantic at times....although at the end the first two were in a world of their own, really. Wish Lando had been a bit more aggressive at the start and kept Max behind him.....

[Aysedasi]

A decent sprint race. Unnecessary, but decent. I don't think Lando ever stood a chance of holding Max up. He would have got past somewhere. He was clearly much quicker at the end.

[S griffin]

Yes, the sprint races here tend to be the best. Interlagos tends to always deliver and give us a great race. Let’s see if the slightly mixed grid gives us a good race.

How well are the Alpha Tauris going? They are really flying. Danny Ric came back from injury at just the right time it seems

[peebee2]

Originally Posted by S griffin

How well are the Alpha Tauris going? They are really flying. Danny Ric came back from injury at just the right time it seems

There’s plenty of folk judge the AT to be a fundamentally very good car that the team and drivers have totally wasted this year.

[Richard C]

Originally Posted by Lancsbreaker

Wish Lando had been a bit more aggressive at the start and kept Max behind him.....

Damned if you do, damned if you don't. Last race, we saw Perez trying to push hard in the first corner and it dropped him right out of the race. Maybe Lando gave up that corner as he felt trying to defend hard was too risky.

Also, it seems that the McLaren needs a few laps to get the tires working. Then once the tires are turned on, it can be quite quick. In the end, I think Max had a bit more pace than Lando, but maybe not a huge amount. Short of a mistake or problem with Max's car, I didn't see Lando winning. But I am encourage that they are close.

Richard

[Lancsbreaker]

WTF! Leclerc bins it on the formation lap!

[Lancsbreaker]

And now a red flag after major shunt at the first corner......

[Lancsbreaker]

Lets see how this restart goes........

[bjohnsonsmith]

This time it's a clean start.

[bjohnsonsmith]

Blimey, what an overtake by Alonso.

[Lancsbreaker]

Originally Posted by bjohnsonsmith

Blimey, what an overtake by Alonso.

Absolutely! superb response and great racecraft!

[Greem]

Originally Posted by bjohnsonsmith

Blimey, what an overtake by Alonso.

Absolutely brilliant. What a drive. And by Norris too.

Max though. He's just a machine!

[Tourer]

The race was enjoyable with plenty going on through the field but those last laps really brought it alive - thank you Checo and Ferdi, really kicked of an early Monday morning here in Oz in a spectacular fashion.

Another awesome, unflappable drive from Max - really quite incredible what he and RBR have achieved this year.

Lastly, was really, really good to hear unbridled enthusiasm from the crowd for all the driver interviews and the podium - no boos, no jeers - just the way it should be.

[GT6]

Yes great race form Max but you can see from the coverage that interest lies else where and if max and RBR can not see that then i am sure thier sponsers will soon let them know, they are paying large sums to be seen on the TV and Ma and his car were almost imvicible during that race

[FIRE]

Originally Posted by GT6

Yes great race form Max but you can see from the coverage that interest lies else where and if max and RBR can not see that then i am sure thier sponsers will soon let them know, they are paying large sums to be seen on the TV and Ma and his car were almost imvicible during that race

Their other car got plenty of coverage.

[S griffin]

Really crazy start to the race with Leclerc going off on the formation lap, in the same place he went off last year after clashing with Norris IIRC. Then the coming together at the start between Magnussen and Albon, although I was a bit surprised to see a red flag for that. The cars seemed like they could be cleared away under SC

Nice to see Norris all over the back of Verstappen early, shame he couldn’t keep with him after that, but at least he gave us a bit of excitement. Although not as much as Perez/Alonso late on. Great to see both Alonso and Aston back on form

Mercedes pace was really embarrassing, they clearly can’t wait for the season to end