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An ample variety of tyre
strategies involving all three compounds helped to make the Brazilian Grand
Prix one of the most stunning of the season, with racing right to the finish
line.
McLaren’s Lando Norris took his second consecutive race win
after a perfect weekend to stretch his championship lead, Mercedes driver
Kimi Antonelli scored the best result of his young career with second, while
driver of the day was Red Bull’s Max Verstappen: who finished on the podium
after starting from the pitlane.
A key factor to this action-packed
race was tyre strategy in the cool and challenging conditions, with
intermittent drizzly rain at the start of the day and track temperatures
that never exceeded 29 degrees centigrade.
At the start, all three
compounds were seen on the grid, with Antonelli in second selecting the soft
tyres to try to out-drag polesitter Norris on the mediums. However, a safety
car on the opening lap, subsequently followed by a virtual safety car,
neutralised the action and also had the effect of reducing energy demands
through the tyres at a crucial point In the race with cars full of fuel.
Verstappen, who had started on hard tyres from the pits with a fresh set
up and new engine, worked his way up to the midfield before lap 10 but was
forced to pit early for the medium after picking up a slow puncture on
debris from the many incidents – so had his work cut out all over again.
The fight at the front of the field for most of the race was between the
two McLarens, which adopted identical two stop medium-soft-medium
strategies: however, Oscar Piastri’s progress was blunted by a 10-second
penalty for his part in the incident that brought out the virtual safety
car.
Verstappen ended up taking a three stop strategy using all three
compounds: racing from last to within 10 seconds of the lead at the end of
the 71 laps.
While the vast majority of the drivers stopped twice,
Liam Lawson (Racing Bulls) and Nico Hulkenberg (Sauber) both finished in the
points with two different one-stoppers. In total, there were seven different
strategy variants adopted by the 17 finishers.
MARIO ISOLA - MOTORSPORT DIRECTOR
“Interlagos always springs surprises and delivers fantastic racing. Last
year it was the rain to provide the variable that enhanced the show; this
year we saw a wide variety of race strategies, which – combined with the
unique characteristics of this track – encouraged even more overtaking than
normal.
It was impressive to see Max Verstappen starting from the
pitlane and getting onto the podium; the reigning world champion never stops
amazing us. Congratulations also to young Kimi Antonelli, who managed to
defend his second place bravely, and of course to Lando Norris, who sealed a
great win from pole.
As we expected the soft and the medium were
favoured, and a two-stop strategy was the most common. The degradation
levels on the tyres, combined with some early pit stops to take advantage of
the neutralisation periods at the start of the race, probably pushed the
teams towards that choice, putting the emphasis on the two softer compounds.
The hard didn't really come into play, as it tended to slide a lot on a
surface that had been ‘reset’ by the rain the morning. The pit stop windows
were different for each driver, creating performance differentials that
helped overtaking and gave us a great show as a result.
The only two
drivers who finished the grand prix with just one stop obviously had to work
their tyres harder than the others, who experienced wear and graining levels
that were lower than yesterday. Nonetheless, Liam Lawson and Nico Hulkenberg
showed today that a one-stopper was also a perfectly valid strategy. And
it's been a long time since we saw such a wide variety of strategies using
different compounds, from one to three stops, end up scoring points at the
end of a dry race."
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