Lando Norris of McLaren-Mercedes took confident pole positions and victories in both the sprint race (a short event with around one third the laps of the full event) and the main race in Sao Paulo, Brazil, over the past weekend. Andrea Kimi Antonelli of Mercedes did extremely well to start from second position and finish in second position for both the sprint race and the main race. Max Verstappen of Red Bull put on a masterclass in a less-than-optimal car to finish third in the main race, despite having started from the pit lane after a disastrous qualifying session that saw him knocked out in round 1.
George Russell of Mercedes put in very solid performances to qualify well, and to finish third in the sprint race and fourth in the main race. Disaster struck for Oscar Piastri as he crashed out a third of the way through the sprint race after running over a wet curb, which resulted in zero points for him from that event. He seemed set to do well in the main race, but there was a racing incident for which the race stewards penalised him, and he finished fifth.
Overall, it was a dramatic race with a few incidents and a superlative performance from Mr. Verstappen. On sheer driving ability, he would certainly deserve to win this year’s championship. The engineering side of things has let him down this season, though. It was a terrible race for Ferrari, with both Charles Leclerc and Lewis Hamilton not finishing the race.
The emerging trend at this late stage of the season is that Mr. Norris has both good form and a good car, Mr. Piastri has definitely suffered in form but still has a good car, and Mr. Verstappen is in top form but has a worse car than the two aforementioned McLaren drivers. The World Drivers’ Championship remains open, with any of those three drivers being able to win. It would take just one Did Not Finish (DNF) result from one of them—through anything from an electronic failure or tyre puncture to a momentary lapse in concentration or a fractional misjudgement—to change the picture radically. The season has turned out far more interesting than it promised to be, midway through the year.