The teams and drivers were in Brazil for the FORMULA 1 HEINEKEN GRANDE PRÊMIO DE SÃO PAULO 2021. It was a sprint race weekend for the third and final time this season. Lewis Hamilton made a fantastic recovery drive on Saturday to come from the back to P5. He continued that recovery on Sunday from P10 to victory after a tight battle with Max Verstappen.
Max Verstappen got away well from second on the grid, going side-by-side into the first corner with Valtteri Bottas. Bottas was forced wide into the second corner and the Mercedes driver had to concede the lead. Bottas tried to defend the inside of turn 4 from Sergio Perez, but carried too much speed into the corner, running wide and giving Perez the position.
Carlos Sainz had a poor start from P3 on the grid. Lando Norris tried to capitalize on this, trying to squeeze past on the outside between the wall on the main straight and the Ferrari. There just wasn’t enough space. The two touched and Norris came away with a puncture. He had to crawl around nearly an entire lap to get new tyres.
On the opening lap, Lewis Hamilton was up to P6 by the end of the lap, showing that his pace in the sprint race on Saturday was not just a fluke. By lap 5, he was up into P3 after the Mercedes drivers swapped positions in the first corner, losing Bottas a few seconds in his race.
The safety car was deployed on lap 7, which benefited Hamilton greatly, as it bunched up the pack. The safety car allowed marshals to clean up debris from the AlphaTauri of Yuki Tsunoda and Aston Martin of Lance Stroll from the first corner. Tsunoda made an overly ambitious dive up the inside of Stroll, hitting the sidepod of the Aston Martin. The move earned the rookie a 10 second time penalty.
The race resumed on lap 10. On the restart, both Red Bull drivers were swerving a lot to heat up the tyres. Verstappen waited until the last possible moment to bolt, leaving the two Mercedes drivers in the dust. Red Bull was able to gain an advantage, having done a better job of heating up the tyres on the restart.
The green flag was short-lived, as the virtual safety car was deployed a couple of laps later. Kimi Raikkonen was overtaking Mick Schumacher around the outside of the first corner. The two made contact and Schumacher lost his front wing. He limped back to the pit lane, but with his front wing under the Haas, there was a lot of debris littered around the circuit. It took the marshals a couple of laps to clean all of the bits of carbon fibre.
Hamilton was right on the back of Perez down the main straight on lap18, diving around the outside of the first corner. Perez took the position back around the outside of turn 4. Hamilton made the same move around the outside of the first corner the following lap, but was further ahead this time around, preventing Perez from fighting back. This unleashed Hamilton to chase down his championship rival, who was some 3.5 seconds down the road.
Hamilton was the first of the lead drivers to pit, trying to undercut the Red Bull of Verstappen ahead on lap 27. Verstappen responded the following lap, rejoining the race still in the net lead of the race. Hamilton was held up slightly behind Daniel Ricciardo’s McLaren on his out lap, but the gap between him and Verstappen was reduced to just 1.5 seconds.
Sergio Perez pitted for hard tyres on lap 29. Valtteri Bottas was fortunate in the timing of his pit stop, taking a cheap pit stop under the virtual safety car on lap 30. The VSC was deployed to clean up some carbon fibre that he came off of the floor of Lance Stroll’s Aston Martin down the main straight from his previous damage after his collision with Tsunoda earlier in the race. The cheap pit stop put Bottas ahead of Perez when the race resumed.
Max Verstappen was the first of the lead 4 to make his second stop in the two-stop strategy on lap 41. He rejoined on the hard tyres narrowly behind Nicholas Latifi, but he got by on the run up to turn 4, as the blue flag waved for the Williams. In the following laps, Bottas pitted and then Perez and finally Hamilton.
Neither Mercedes driver was particularly happy with the strategy call, with Bottas saying the team threw away an easy 1-2 finish. Hamilton wanted the medium compound tyre, but the team felt the tyre wear was too high on the first stint.
A few laps after the pit stops, Hamilton was within DRS range of Verstappen. He was not close enough down the main straight to make a dive up the inside to the first corner. Hamilton was close enough to make a move into the fourth corner with some help with the DRS. Hamilton tried to make a move around the outside of Verstappen. Verstappen pushed hard to defend his position on the inside, running wide and forcing the Mercedes to run wide as well.
The stewards noted the incident, but ultimately decided that no investigation was necessary. It is a call that’s likely to be quite controversial among the fans.
For the next 10 laps, Hamilton remained within the DRS zone of Verstappen, but was not close enough to make any dives by the leading Red Bull. On lap 59, Hamilton was a lot closer coming out of the first corners. He used the DRS to get around Verstappen before they even got to turn 4, taking the lead of the race. Verstappen was shown the black and white flag for weaving on the straight the previous lap while trying to break Hamilton’s slipstream.
It was a relatively orderly closing stage of the race. Sergio Perez pitted on the penultimate lap for a set of soft tyres to steal the fastest lap from Hamilton and the bonus point that comes with it. Verstappen had to settle for P2 in the results and Bottas took the bottom step of the podium. Verstappen still leads the World Drivers’ Championship, but his lead took a bit of a hit and it’s looking positive for Hamilton with his new power unit, which could give them better straight line speed in the next couple of races.
With only three races remaining in the 2021 season, the teams will be heading to Qatar for the first time to conclude the final triple-header of the season. The inaugural Qatar Grand Prix will be on the weekend of November 21.
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| Race Results | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | L. Hamilton | ||
| 2 | M. Verstappen | ||
| 3 | V. Bottas | ||
| 4 | S. Perez | ||
| 5 | C. Leclerc | ||
| 6 | C. Sainz | ||
| 7 | P. Gasly | ||
| 8 | E. Ocon | ||
| 9 | F. Alonso | ||
| 10 | L. Norris | ||
| 11 | S. Vettel | ||
| 12 | K. Raikkonen | ||
| 13 | G. Russell | ||
| 14 | A. Giovinazzi | ||
| 15 | Y. Tsunoda | ||
| 16 | N. Latifi | ||
| 17 | N. Mazepin | ||
| 18 | M. Schumacher | ||
| DNF | D. Ricciardo | ||
| DNF | L. Stroll | ||
