Max Attack!

Max Verstappen took one of the best wins of his career today, going from 17^th on the grid to first at the chequered flag. It is the Dutchman’s 62^nd win, his first since 23^rd June when he won the Spanish Grand Prix. It’s his eighth of the season, as it is for his Red Bull team, whose total is now 121, with eight of those coming at the Interlagos circuit. 

Also on the podium were both Alpine drivers, with Esteban Ocon second and Pierre Gasly third. The last time two Frenchman finished in the top three was at the 1997 Spanish Grand Prix when Olivier Panis (Prost-Mugen Honda) was second and Jean Alesi (Benetton-Renault) was third, preceded by another French speaker, Jacques Villeneuve (Williams-Renault).

THE DAY ON TRACK   

Track action began at 7.30 with qualifying, put back from yesterday because of the adverse weather conditions. Once again today, the rain played its part, with no drivers able to use dry weather tyres. The extreme wet featured in the first part of qualifying, before the Intermediate came into play. There were no fewer than five interruptions caused by drivers crashing, in a session that therefore lasted almost an hour and 45 minutes, with the rain varying in intensity several times.

The race was rescheduled to start at 12.30 and apart from it being red flagged towards the halfway mark because of heavy rain reducing visibility to a precarious degree, it went ahead with just a few Safety Car appearances. Over the 69 laps (the race distance was reduced by two laps due to the two aborted start procedures) the Intermediate did the lion’s share of the work. Only five drivers – Perez, Lawson, Tsunoda, Zhou and Hulkenberg – also used the Extreme when the rain got heavier, but then the red flag reset everything, and for the restart the Intermediate was clearly best suited to the track conditions. There were 33 tyre changes, including those under the red flag and a total of 51 sets were used, five of them for extreme wets. Of the drivers who finished the race, only four used two sets of Intermediates, namely Valtteri Bottas and the three drivers who finished on the podium.

Following a similar event at the Imola Grand Prix, the Sao Paulo Grand Prix provided another opportunity to remember Ayrton Senna in the thirtieth anniversary year of his tragic death. Pirelli contributed by producing a special edition of the Pole Position Award, presented to Lando Norris by Ayrton’s niece, Bianca Senna, the director of the eponymous institute, as well as a special version of the iconic Podium Cap. Both items featured the gold and green colours of the Brazilian flag, along with the Senna logo. Bianca is the daughter of the three-times world champion’s sister, Viviane, who founded the non-profit organisation that has been involved in supporting educational projects for Brazilian children and teenagers for the past thirty years.

MARIO ISOLA – PIRELLI DIRECTOR OF MOTORSPORT   

“What can I say, that was a really busy Sunday! It’s true it has happened before that we have had qualifying and the race on the same day, even in this period since Pirelli has been the Global Tyre Supplier to Formula 1. But never before has it taken place so early in the day and in such a compressed time format, with many of the Formula 1 family hearing their alarm clocks going off well before dawn! I feel we should applaud all those who made it possible to ensure that the entire weekend programme was completed, despite the weather complicating matters since yesterday afternoon. There was an extraordinary crowd of almost three hundred thousand spectators at Interlagos and I’m sure that they and all those watching on television and on the various social platforms were rewarded with a very exciting show, both in qualifying and the race. They would have experienced a whole range of emotions, which is often the case when rain come along to lower adhesion while highlighting the skills of the drivers. From a technical point of view, we leave Interlagos having picked up plenty of useful information. In today’s qualifying we saw both the extreme wet and intermediate tyres at work and could therefore clearly verify their operating windows. In the race, there was a point when one could have made a direct comparison between the two types of tyre over a long stint, but in fact the neutralisation caused when visibility was deemed too poor, meant we only saw this for a handful of laps. One should also bear in mind that the rain varied in intensity several times and on a brand-new track surface, the grip levels in the wet were very limited, partly due to the oily layer that it created. All things considered, I believe both tyres proved to be up to the job in hand.”

COMING UP NEXT FOR OUR TYRES

There are now three weeks until the start of the triple-header that will bring the curtain down on the 2024 season. It begins with the second edition of the Las Vegas Grand Prix, from 21 to 23 November on the street circuit laid out around the famous Strip. For this round, set in the Nevada desert, the third Grand Prix to be held this year in the USA, the dry compounds chosen are the same as here in Sao Paulo, namely, the C3 as Hard, the C4 as Medium and the C5 as Soft.

Before Las Vegas, Pirelli is heading to Magny-Cours on 13 and 14 November, for another test session for the 2026 tyres. With the help of the Alpine team, this will be a test of the first prototype rain tyres.