The crucial lap that swung F1's Brazilian GP from Norris to Verstappen

“If I was going to have one opportunity, it was going to be there and then.” Lando Norris hadn’t exactly raced out of the blocks on the Brazilian Grand Prix’s second standing start, but had gathered momentum after waving away a sniff of an attack from Lewis Hamilton as he gave chase to inevitable race leader Max Verstappen. It produced a showdown that was as fleeting as it was intense.

During the infant laps of the 71-tour race at the famed Interlagos circuit, a venue that has hosted more than its fair share of iconic F1 moments, Norris intended to fight Verstappen. The Red Bull driver was not given the opportunity to perform his usual trick of running off into the distance, at least, not until much later, as Norris stuck to the RB19’s tail through the opening laps and then began to pile on the pressure.

It was at the end of the seventh lap that Norris closed the arrears down to less than half a second, setting up a pair of assaults on Verstappen on lap eight that he hoped would reward him with the lead. The first was precipitated by Norris’s run on the start/finish straight; Verstappen found the papaya-tinged MCL60 barrelling toward him in his mirrors at a vast rate of knots, prompting him to make a subtle manoeuvre towards the left and collect the inside line into the downhill Senna S. This forced Norris to the outside and left one more chance for him – this time, at Turn 4 – to come up for air with the lead.

Norris stayed close to Verstappen, but had lost a little of the ground he’d made up through Turn 2; he had to lean on his DRS activation to catch back up, before hoping to dummy the car ahead into chasing shadows. But Verstappen was, once again, wise to it.

Again, he assumed the inside line to force Norris to the outside, and the McLaren was only able get to the braking zone level with Verstappen’s Red Bull. There was no chance that Norris could cruise around the outside, and he instead decided to consolidate on what he already had through backing off over the rest of the lap.

“The opportunity to race against Max was only going to be for a few laps,” Norris concluded in his post-race musings. “We weren't going to find all of a sudden the pace we needed to compete against him for a whole race. And Fernando [Alonso] was behind me; we know that [Aston Martin’s] race pace, especially when it’s high deg, can be very good. He didn't have clean air [in the sprint]; today he was going to be in a position to potentially achieve a lot more.

“I didn't want to compromise my own race by having one more attempt. At the same time, I was low on battery, and if you overheat the tyres too much, too early, you can pay the price quite heavily.

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Norris put Verstappen under early pressure, but couldn't sustain it

“It wasn't worth a second attempt as much as I would have loved to. I think it potentially could have happened, but it wasn't worth the risk and potential consequences of being in the hands of Fernando and the people behind.”

Luck and opportunism had opened Norris to the possibility of challenging Verstappen for the lead amid early-race chaos that afflicted the fortunes of one driver before the start had even taken place. Charles Leclerc was left to wallow in his own misfortune before the lights had even gone out after departing his front-row seat for the formation lap.

At the uphill Ferradura right-hander, Leclerc first lost his power steering before the engine locked, causing him to spin into the wall. He suspected a hydraulic issue to begin with, but would not divulge any further details following his failure to start the race.

Verstappen does not sledgehammer away at the timing board and flex his muscles with single-lap break-builders, but instead creates that impending sense of dread among the other drivers as he slowly turns the screw

This left a gaping void alongside Verstappen, one that the fourth-placed Alonso had a clear run at if his Aston Martin was willing to provide the traction out of the blocks. Unfortunately for the veteran Spaniard, it didn’t quite pan out like that. His AMR23 ambled off the starting grid with enough speed to dive past third-placed team-mate Lance Stroll, but not enough to combat Norris’s move down the inside or Lewis Hamilton’s outside-line sweep.

Norris was up to second, but the race was quickly neutralised as a crash between Alex Albon and Kevin Magnussen prompted the emergence of a safety car followed by a red flag. Having felt that the pace in his McLaren was good enough for pole – proving that hypothesis in the sprint shootout – Norris at least had been rewarded with a front-row start for the grand prix at the second attempt.

We left the Verstappen-Norris battle just as it had ended; the fizz of ignition had burned brightly, but Norris’s retreat brought an end to the duel at the front. Alonso was less than two seconds behind, having got back ahead of Hamilton at Turn 4 on the restart which “changed my race”, and thus compelled Norris to prioritise the bigger picture rather than purely gazing upon glory.

Two laps after the main assault, Verstappen had a lead of almost two seconds, which continued to incrementally expand by a tenth or two each lap until the first pitstop phase began.

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Leclerc's absence from the front row presented Norris an opportunity to fire down the inside of Alonso and claim second

Verstappen came to the end of his soft tyres at the end of lap 27 and called in for mediums, but McLaren decided to respond by pitting Norris on the same lap rather than opting for an offset in strategies. The gap at the time of their stop – around 3.6s – was perhaps too much to overcome with an undercut, and an overcut did not seem particularly effective given the high levels of degradation, so McLaren probably needed to go like-for-like.

Norris’s stop was not slow by any measure, 2.6s relative to the Red Bull crew’s 2.2s service on Verstappen, but his longer overall tenure in the pitlane grew the margin by a second. A slower out-lap put the gap between the front two at over five seconds, which ensured that any remaining hopes that Norris could still win had become increasingly sparse.

That’s not to say that Norris didn’t try to whittle down the time, as he managed to find a good turn of pace on his new medium boots to get the gap down to 4.8s as he kept pace with Verstappen. But anyone who has watched the reigning champion this season has become accustomed to his modus operandi of winning races; the Dutchman does not sledgehammer away at the timing board and flex his muscles with single-lap break-builders, but instead creates that impending sense of dread among the other drivers as he slowly turns the screw.

Red Bull’s stronger grasp of tyre degradation assists his recent style of slowly torturing the rest of the field, allowing the small but defendable gaps to multiply into massive deltas at the end of a stint. That became apparent during the medium-tyre phase in the middle of the race. Norris was keeping about five seconds in hand to Verstappen and hoping to close in, but the McLaren MCL60 hit the point of no return with the tyres far sooner.

This helped the gap open to more than seven seconds by the end of the stint as the Red Bull driver’s pace proved more ruinous to Norris the longer they stayed out. That said, it was Verstappen who called his second stint to an earlier end, with his team knowing it could play it a little safer with a lap 56 pit call.

This put the pressure on McLaren to do something different having elected not to build on an offset strategy earlier on, and thus Norris put an extra three laps on his medium tyres to give him a little more to play with on the final set of softs. Verstappen’s earlier stop offered the standard fare associated with an undercut and, when Norris emerged from the pits on lap 60, he was 13.4s adrift at the front as the medium had been about two seconds per lap slower than the new softs Verstappen was sporting.

Norris could afford to push a little harder to get the gap down, however, and he demonstrated that intent with a 1m12.486s on his first full lap on his new boots. He then kept his pace over the remaining laps resolutely within the 1m13s, while Verstappen straddled the 1m14s barrier having been under little pressure at the front of the field. It was enough for Norris to take the ultimate margin down to 8.3s, if nothing else but to retain a sense of respectability to the results tables when viewed devoid of context.

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Stopping earlier than Norris twice ensured Verstappen didn't come under threat from an undercut

Verstappen, for his part, extended his record of wins in one season to 17, which he celebrated with an impromptu spot of karaoke over the radio with a rendition of an unlikely favourite song.

“Jos told me in Qatar. I asked 'What is his favourite song?', you know maybe Paul [Smith, team PR] can play it,” explained Christian Horner. “And he went Green Green Grass of Home by Tom Jones. Obviously, after the Spice Girls, I'm thinking he would be totally into Ed Sheeran, or somebody contemporary of his age. But Tom Jones?!”

Noting that the rest of the race might have looked easy from the outside, Verstappen was keen to point out that the threat from Norris and McLaren had been genuine, but the longer stints began to play into Red Bull’s hands as it could start to lean on its tyre management superiority.

“I think for most of every stint, Lando was matching my lap times,” Verstappen explained after the race. “It was always like the last five to 10 laps when it seemed like then, of course, we had better tyre degradation. But the beginning of every stint, I definitely had to focus a lot and I couldn’t afford to make mistakes.

"With the high deg as well, it’s not the easiest to drive. It’s not like you can just relax and let the car just roll into the corners without any consequence" Max Verstappen

“Around here with the high deg as well, it’s not the easiest to drive. It’s not like you can just relax and let the car just roll into the corners without any consequence. You had to be really on it. Luckily, everything we did today, also strategy-wise, pitstops, were good.”

If the Verstappen-Norris battle had largely amounted to a flash in the pan, the battle over the final podium position had burned slowly throughout the race to deliver a final crescendo between two racers amid a resurgence in Brazil. It was during the middle stint that the battle for third was forecast between Alonso and Sergio Perez, the latter of whom had climbed up from ninth to contend for his first top-three finish since Monza.

Perez had opted for a heavy undercut after his first stint, and the 8s gap that had split them at the time of his pitstop had shrunk to about 3s when Alonso left the pitlane. Initial progress on the medium tyre went Perez’s way and the Mexican managed to get within 2s of the Aston Martin driver, but Alonso had been doing enough to stabilise. The difference between them started to grow again towards the end of that middle stint, and Alonso inflated the gap back up to 3s before Perez stopped for a final time.

To minimise a potential undercut, Alonso stopped a lap later than Perez – lap 47 versus lap 46. These were long stints to produce at 24 and 25 laps apiece on the soft tyres, but the fuel had burned off and the softest rubber seemed to be the far more preferable option despite the high levels of degradation.

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Getting back ahead of Hamilton after losing out at the initial start Alonso claimed was crucial to his race

After out-laps, Alonso and Perez were separated by 3.3s and the veteran Spaniard had probably hoped that the final stint would play out in very much the same way as previously. Instead, Perez had other ideas.

Seeking retribution for Mexico, Perez dearly wished to join his team-mate on the podium for the first time in a little over two months. Without taking too much life from his tyres, he gave chase to Alonso’s Aston Martin and hoped that the superior DRS activation on his Red Bull would be enough to plunder third place from the two-time champion’s grasp. But he’d have to outfox Alonso to do it – an undertaking that few truly master.

Getting to within DRS range of Alonso was the easy bit; Perez had got that done on lap 55 and was tracking the AMR23’s movements ahead to detect any weaknesses. Owing to the Aston Martin’s strengths at low-speed, a daring move through the infield would be a tad tricky, so the DRS-assisted options were Perez’s best bet.

It seemed that Alonso knew this too, and so his prerogative was to experiment with lines out of Bico de Pato and Juncao to have enough of a gap by the time they reached the start/finish straight. Giving the apex a wide berth at both corners seemed to offer traction without burning the tyres out completely.

The battle was distilled into the final two laps. Perez’s patience was rewarded with a mighty run out of Juncao at the end of lap 69; he galloped up the hill with great tempo and melted away Alonso’s advantage at the business end of the start/finish straight. Lap 70, Turn 1, Perez had the inside line and looked to have sealed a last-ditch podium finish.

“I thought, ‘OK, this is gone’,” Alonso admitted when Perez flashed past. Although his confidence may have wavered by just an iota, the Asturian is rarely so easily beaten.

Having the outside for the first part of the Senna S was not such a bad thing, as it offered a bit more momentum through the Curva do Sol and the DRS chase to Turn 4 forced Perez to take a defensive line. At this point, Alonso realised he had Perez where he wanted him, and could keep forcing Perez into blocking hypothetical passes while he himself took the racing line through the second half of the lap.

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Perez spent several laps tracking Alonso before making his bid for third on the penultimate tour, however that wasn't the end of the matter

This gave Alonso enough to stay close, crucially preserving his position within DRS range to set up a thrilling last-lap showdown. Assuming the outside once more, albeit this time as an offensive posture, Alonso again put Perez into a defensive position into Turn 1, which hampered the Red Bull’s momentum down the hill. The slight drop in speed was vital to the next phase.

In Perez’s wheeltracks, Alonso hoovered up the remaining gap with DRS and then tilted his steering wheel to the left, forcing Perez to take a defensive line once more. Now stuck, Perez could not cut back across to the racing line prematurely to leave Alonso the opportunity to hang it out around the outside. He managed it, and again helped stall Perez’s momentum though the Descida do Lago.

Two very different battles for position defined Brazil’s GP top four order, but both were as memorable as each other as tactical gambles both succeeded and failed to reward the drivers with their expected outcomes

Perez wasn’t quite done, and his exit from Juncao at the end of the lap was far stronger. Reclaiming third at the line was the only bet, and he was probably about 10 metres from making it. Alonso nosed ahead by just 0.053s to clinch his first podium since the Dutch GP in August.

Two very different battles for position defined Brazil’s GP top four order, but both were as memorable as each other as tactical gambles both succeeded and failed to reward the drivers with their expected outcomes. It’s those kinds of gambles that will be fitting for F1’s return to Las Vegas for the first time in 40 years, as Sin City’s new circuit could prove to be something of a roulette wheel if the expected cold conditions prove to be the defining factor.

Photo by: Zak Mauger / Motorsport Images

Alonso was elated to end his podium wait after seeing off Perez at the line