Motorsport journalist and podcaster
Lewis Hamilton has beaten title rival Max Verstappen from 10th on the grid in a race-long duel at the Sao Paulo Grand Prix to reinvigorate his world championship chances.
The Briton wielded his Mercedes car’s straight-line speed advantage to perfection from his penalized starting position in the midfield, passing five cars off the line and rising to third after just five laps to assault the Red Bull Racing pair for a first victory since September.
His race was set up early despite teammate Valtteri Bottas failing to hold pole off the line and dropping to third, handing the Bulls an early one-two formation.
Continue reading on RACERLewis Hamilton can win the Sao Paulo Grand Prix — an ordinarily unremarkable statement made extraordinary by the last 24 hours in Formula 1.
Valtteri Bottas has held off Max Verstappen to take pole position for the Sao Paulo Grand Prix in F1’s third ever sprint race.
Valtteri Bottas will start the Sao Paulo Grand Prix from pole position after beating Max Verstappen to sprint victory in Interlagos. Lewis Hamilton, who started at the back of the grid after being thrown out of qualifying with an illegal rear wing, gained 15 places to finish fifth.
Bottas got a great launch with soft tires from second on the grid while polesitter Verstappen struggled on the mediums. By Turn 1 the Finn was easily into the lead, leaving the Dutchman to fend off advances from Carlos Sainz, who slipped into second exiting Turn 4, where the Red Bull ran wide on cold tires.
It took a couple of laps for the medium rubber to warm up in the cool temperature, the track sinking to just 95 degrees F after a warmer morning practice. By the end of lap three Verstappen was sizing up Sainz for second, taking back the place from the Spaniard on the pit straight and into Turn 1, before chipping away to Bottas’s lead, the leaders sprinting around a second a lap quicker than the field.
Continue reading on RACERFernando Alonso has topped a warm final practice at the Sao Paulo Grand Prix while stewards investigations into Lewis Hamilton and Max Verstappen remains unresolved just hours before the sprint.
Alonso was 0.864s quicker than the under-investigation Verstappen at the top of the order, but his best lap of 1m11.238s was substantially off the pace of either session on Friday. FP2 during sprint weekends is run under parc ferme conditions, confining its usefulness to long runs rather than ultimate pace or set-up changes.
Verstappen was summoned to the stewards in the hours before final practice began for touching Lewis Hamilton’s rear wing after qualifying, an apparent breach of the FIA international sporting code, but no decision had been made before the end of practice.
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