Brazil GP Sprint Report

Overnight it had rained in Sao Paulo but it was dry and the torrential downpour predicted was nowhere to be seen for the Sprint.  There were plumes of water off the track as they set off.  Norris got off pole cleanly and Antonelli shot straight across the track in a punchy move that saw him secure second.  Verstappen got past Alonso by the first couple of corners.  Towards the back, Lawson tapped Bearman who spun.

Tsunoda and Sainz started from the pit lane having had awful Sprint Qualifying sessions.  For six laps everyone went about their business, trying to keep within DRS of the cars in front of them.  Then, out of nowhere, Piastri hit a wet curb, dragging water onto the track, went into a spin, into the barrier and out of the race.  Right behind him, Colapinto and Hulkenberg did the same thing.  There were two cars right at the side of the track, the medical car was triggered and a Safety Car brought out before they stopped the race with a Red Flag.  Antonelli told his team that it was Norris who had splashed water onto the track.  Hulkenberg got his car back to the pit lane where it could be worked on.

Verstappen and his engineer, JP, had another married couple tiff about how Turn 1 could be bettered on the radio, to entertain the crowd during the halt.  There would be a lot of work for Alpine to do for Colapinto's car to be ready for Qualifying.

It was a rolling start and behind Norris, who left them behind, there were plenty of battles.  Alonso pushed hard at Verstappen and Russell went for Antonelli, neither were successful.  Albon did get ahead to tenth.  Then everyone held their places until, with three laps to go, Antonelli finally caught up with Norris.  It seemed he couldn't quite do enough though.

On the last lap, the commentators could see a huge crash for Bortoleto but it wasn't shown until everyone knew he was okay.  Unusually, the race kept going under waved Yellow Flags.  We also weren't shown LeClerc getting past Alonso.  When we did see the crash, we saw that he was full throttle down the straight and it was very high speed, high impact collision.  Hadjar was sprayed with debris and Albon scooped up the big bits under his car.  None of them were near the points though.  The mechanics would be working very hard for a couple of hours.  Colapinto and Bortoleto, who were the only home town heroes in Brazil, would be catching up in the medical centre.  The Brazilian was later seen running back to the pit lane.

The top eight were Norris, Antonelli, Russell, Verstappen, LeClerc, Alonso, Hamilton and Gasly.  These were great points for Alpine and Mercedes and Ferrari all need points for the Constructor's Championship.