Round 20 of the 2023 Formula 1 World Championship was held at the infamous Interlagos Circuit in Brazil for the 2023 Sao Paulo Grand Prix - a favourite for many fans.
Some brilliant news for Brazilian fans took place before any racing action had even started. Formula 1 had announced that the Sao Paulo Grand Prix would stay on the calendar until at least 2030.
Verstappen makes history... again
Red Bull driver Max Verstappen won the Sao Paulo Grand Prix in - pretty much - comfortable fashion. The Dutchman was only challenged once by Lando Norris early on in the race, but would then go on to win the race by eight seconds.
The win in Sao Paulo recorded Verstappen's 17th win of the season, meaning that he breaks the win conversion rate record set back Alberto Ascari - the Italian won six out of the eight races.
Verstappen has well and truly had a record-breaking season, breaking many records and dominating the season. He is that dominant, the reigning world champion won the constructors' championship on his own with the amount of points he accumulated.
McLaren show impressive pace and Aston are back
McLaren showed really good pace over the weekend. The Woking team had a chance of taking pole on Friday. However, the weather prevented the McLaren drivers to have a solid final run in Q3.
However, Norris managed to take sprint pole on Saturday, edging out Verstappen. But during the races, the RB19 was still too strong for the MCL60 - although progress is being made clearly.
Aston Martin have had a dismal second half of the season after the summer break. The Silverstone team have gone from challenging to podiums to struggling for points.
However, this weekend saw Aston Martin return to their best. In Friday's qualifying, Lance Stroll managed to qualify third with Fernando Alonso in fourth.
In the race, Alonso managed to secure a podium position, heavily fending off Red Bull driver Sergio Perez, edging the Mexican out across the line by 0.053 seconds.
Lance Stroll had a strong race also, finishing in fifth, securing lots of points for the Silverstone team, who will be ecstatic with the result considering their recent performances.
Should this rule be binned?
Chaos happened at the start of the race with Williams driver Alex Albon and Haas driver Kevin Magnussen crashing out of the race. However, the debris from the pair caused more damage to other drivers.
Australian pair Oscar Piastri and Daniel Ricciardo were the victims of this. Piastri had a damaged rear and Ricciardo's rear wing broke due to a tyre flying into it.
The crash brought out a red flag, meaning that teams could try and repair the cars - which McLaren and AlphaTauri impressively managed to do in the end.
However, instead of starting on the grid, the pair started from the pitlane and were a lap down when resuming. This ruined both of their races as there was no second safety car, meaning that there was no chance of catching up.
Both drivers had really good pace, especially Ricciardo. The AlphaTauri driver could have been challenging for a top five finish with his pace shown in the clean air - plus Yuki Tsunoda had a strong drive, finishing ninth.
Should this rule be scrapped?
Nathan Hartley
Add comment
Comments