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Formula 1 Brazilian GP

Brazilian Grand Prix race day

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Radio Comms
"Conditions are mad. It's just stupid," said Vettel just as that was unfolding. "We need extremes and we need to stop the race."
Radio Comms
"How many people do you want to crash?" Vettel adds. "I nearly crashed into Kimi on the straight."
A tractor is out on the pits straight retrieving Raikkonen's wrecked Ferrari as the drivers wander through the pitlane.
Replays show Hulkenberg's Force India will definitely need a new front wing from hitting debris in that mess.
Information
Order: 1 Hamilton; 2 Rosberg; 3 Verstappen; 4 Hulkenberg; 5 Perez; 6 Sainz; 7 Nasr; 8 Ricciardo; 9 Ocon; 10 Wehrlein
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Outside the points: 11 Alonso; 12 Bottas; 13 Magnussen; 14 Button; 15 Vettel; 16 Massa; 17 Gutierrez; 18 Kvyat; 19 Palmer
By staying out on wets throughout the chaotic opening to this race, Sauber finds itself running seventh with the remaining car of Nasr. This looks like the Swiss team's best hope to break its duck before the end of this season, though nearest rival Manor now has both cars in the points in ninth and 10th.
Photo: LAT

Photo: LAT

Photo: LAT

Photo: LAT

Information
Should this race not get back underway, half points would be awarded. This happens in any race that goes to less than 75% distance. Currently, the race clock is suspended, with 1h23m13s left - but in the case of a suspension the window for the race being completed is four hours. The race started at 2pm local time, so we've got until 6pm - which is still just over three hours away.
Radio Comms
"I nearly lost the car on the straight! The conditions are the worst!" Nasr was no a happy man before that stoppage. Sauber urged its man to stay calm.
If half points were to be awarded for this race with the current results, Hamilton would only gain 3.5 points on Rosberg in the championship rather than seven. That would mean he would be 15.5 points behind going to Abu Dhabi. This would mean he could only win the championship in two circumstances - winning with Rosberg outside the top five, or finishing second with Rosberg outside the top eight. But we're a long way from getting into that scenario, as there is still three hours to complete this race in.
Radio Comms
"The aquaplaning is not fun, these tyres are not capable," said Hulkenberg over the radio just after the red flag.
Replays show Ocon just missing Raikkonen's stranded Ferrari through the spray on the pit straight. Did well to keep calm and not overreact.
Rosberg is enthusiastically munching through a banana as he talks with his engineers during this pause.
While we're on the topic of half-points races, there have only been five in F1 history - Spain '75, Austria '75, Monaco '84, Australia '91 and Malaysia '09. So the only drivers on today's grid who have previously competed in a half-points race are Button, Hamilton, Rosberg, Massa, Alonso, Raikkonen and Vettel.
Radio Comms
A replay shows Verstappen having a massive twitch on the straight just as Raikkonen shunted. "I nearly lost it," he admits.
Crash
Ricciardo is given a 5s time penalty for entering the pitlane when it was closed due to Ericsson's crash.
Information
This is the 69th world championship race to be red flagged. It's the third time this year it's happened after Australia and Belgium. The last time Raikkonen was involved in a race-stopping crash was the 2014 British GP.
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While we're digging through such statistics, this was the 12th world championship race to start under the safety car. The first was the 1997 Belgian Grand Prix, with the previous instances only a few months ago at Silverstone.
Photo: LAT

Photo: LAT

Quote
"Hero to zero in 24 hours," is Romain Grosjean's verdict on his Brazilian GP, which ended on the way to the grid. "I feel so bad for the team. I was just doing laps to the grid, not even flat out. I picked up wheelspin like an 'on/off' switch, not pushing at all. Very strange."
Ian Parkes
Continuing the half-point theme, that Daniel Ricciardo penalty has had a major impact on 10th place in the constructors' championship. Before it was implemented, with Sauber's Felipe Nasr currently 7th in the race positions, and Manor duo Esetban Ocon and Pascal Wehrlein ninth and 10th respectively, Sauber would have been ahead of Manor by half a point, not forgetting Wehrlein's 10th place in Austria earlier this year. But with the penalty, Ricciardo now drops below Ocon and Wehrlein, elevating them to eighth and ninth, and so giving Manor four points at present to Sauber's three. Those teams must be on a knife-edge right now given the multi-millions of pounds at stake for 10th in the constructors'.
Information
The race will be restarted in 10 minutes.
Quote
Marcus Ericsson says conditions were fine in the corners, but that there was too much standing water in Turn 12 and on the main straight. "We've seen three cars lose it basically going in a straight line more or less. Both inters and extreme wets it doesn't make a difference. We want to see cars racing but for some reason today they are very sensitive to the standing water."
Photo: LAT

Photo: LAT

Ian Parkes
Race control has decreed all cars must have extreme tyres fitted at the race resumption, so those who were on inters when the race was red flagged are now on full wets
Information
Everyone must take the restart on full wets. There will be 50 laps or one hour and 23 minutes of racing to go.

By: Geoff Creighton

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