Norris wins in Brazil, extends championship lead
Racing was extremely close all weekend, but it was Lando Norris who took all the laurels for winning the sprint and the main race, convincingly.
What a race it proved to be at the Brazilian Grand Prix in Sao Paulo. The first 16 cars came home within a minute of each other.
Yuki Tsunoda (Red Bull) finished last, more than a minute behind the winner, Lando Norris (McLaren), and this was after more than one intervention from the virtual safety car.
Racing was extremely close all weekend but it was Norris who took all the laurels for winning the sprint and the main race, convincingly.
The main battle was really the one for second place, between Kimi Antonelli (Mercedes) and Max Verstappen (Red Bull).
They crossed the line a mere 0.4 seconds apart, with Antonelli sneaking in ahead of the multiple past and defending champion for his best finish to date.
Verstappen showed by magic, once again. He started in the pits at the back of the grid and sliced through the field like a hot knife through butter until he caught up with Antonelli on the last lap but was unable to breach the young racer’s defence.
There were only 17 finishers but it was a great race nonetheless.
Lewis Hamilton and Charles Leclerc didn’t make it in the Ferraris, nor did Gabrielle Bortoleto (Kick Sauber) who went out on the opening lap.
Behind the top three on the podium, were George Russell (Mercedes) in fourth place followed half a second behind by Oscar Piastri (McLaren) in fifth.
This, however, does not explain the ferocity of the duel between the two of them.
The flying Brit managed to keep the sad Australian at bay right up to the chequered flag.
In sixth position, after an extremely good race, was Oliver Bearman (Haas) in his Haas with Liam Lawson (Racing Bull) in seventh, who had his teammate Isack Hadjar bang on his tail in 0.2 seconds behind in eighth position.
It is interesting to note how close the race was, by the fact that seventh place to 10th place also got to the flag less than a second apart.
Nico Hulkenberg (Kick Sauber, to become Audi next year) finished ninth and Pierre Gasly (Alpine Renault) did well to finish 10th.
The two Williams cars were disappointing with Alexander Albon in 11th and teammate Carlos Sainz in 13th places respectively.
It is interesting to note that Esteban Ocon (Haas) finished 12th, six places behind his teammate Lawson, but only two seconds behind.
It really was quite a race for so many cars to finish so close to each other.
With three races to go Norris is starting to look good for the championship, but we cannot yet underestimate the chances of teammate Piastri nor should anyone right off Verstappen just yet.
The next race is in Las Vegas in a fortnight’s time.
DRIVERS
1 Lando Norris 390
2 Oscar Piastri 366
3 Max Verstappen 341
4 George Russell 276
5 Charles Leclerc 214
6 Lewis Hamilton 148
7 Kimi Antonelli 122
8 Alexander Albon 73
9 Nico Hulkenberg 43
10 Isack Hadjar 43
CONSTRUCTORS
1 McLaren 756
2 Mercedes 398
3 Red Bull 366
4 Ferrari 362
5 Williams 111
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