The hope and alarm Mercedes faces versus Red Bull in F1’s main 2021 Interlagos race

“Today was a good day,” Valtteri Bottas said after adding sprint race glory in Brazil to his triumph in Monza back in September. At least this time he’ll be rewarded with the pole stat (that should technically go to Max Verstappen and, arguably, controversially, to Lewis Hamilton) and not just a sponsor memento.

“And I am also pleased that Lewis could get up to fifth place so that gives him plenty of opportunities for [the grand prix],” Bottas continued. “And that means we can still, even with the issues of this weekend, have a great result [when it matters].”

No wonder Bottas was pleased. The likeable Finn had done exactly what Mercedes needed him to once Hamilton had been thrown out of the qualifying results, his DRS gap deemed illegally large when open. That was: beat Max Verstappen to ‘pole position’.

He did that with a pivotal pass at the start of the race. Bottas was aided by Verstappen finding he “somehow lost all the gear syncs” as he accelerated away from the line, losing critical momentum as a result.

But the most significant factor was the performance of the soft tyres on the Mercedes and those on Carlos Sainz Jr, who got such a good launch he vaulted past Sergio Perez off the grid and then caught and passed Verstappen into the fast, downhill Turn 4 left at the end of the second straight.

Although Verstappen would re-catch and pass the Ferrari, Bottas was in no doubt that his run to Turn 1 on the red-walled rubber had been decisive.

“Everything went as planned and we opted to start with the soft tyre because we thought the best chance to get the lead was the race start,” he explained. “Even with a bit of the risk that the end of the race could be tricky. But it worked perfectly. It wasn’t easy at the end, the tyres started to be pretty finished, but I just tried to avoid mistakes and tried to keep the focus.”

Superior launch for Bottas was key in taking sprint race victory

Photo by: Andy Hone / Motorsport Images

Mercedes had spent a long time running the softs throughout the reduced practice running the sprint race weekend format allows. In FP1, Bottas said the team found the compound “behaved a bit better than we expected” and so it moved away from running the mediums – at least on his car – for the first race.

That still gave him considerable work to do. First, he had to “create a gap [to Sainz] but not to kill the tyres immediately” and then he “optimised” his pace in the middle phase of the race. To do both these things, extensive tyre management was involved.

The Mercedes drivers had taken two different approaches to this in FP2, where Bottas started out faster than on Hamilton’s comparable run (where fuel load remains as a typical practice caveat, even with the engine modes and set-ups frozen by the parc ferme requirements from Friday qualifying).

"It was also encouraging to see the car working so well again. The conditions were quite cool and that may have helped us to follow closely, but it certainly seems that we have good pace around this track" Andrew Shovlin

He lost time as the 11-lap stint wore on, ending quicker by 0.1s on average against his team-mate, who was almost metronomic in the low 1m15s, but unable to do a personal best on his final tour as Hamilton did. Mercedes told the Briton he was doing more management than Bottas over their respective runs.

Whether Hamilton lessened this approach or Bottas increased his as a result of studying each other’s data post-practice isn’t known. But the key parts of Interlagos for any driver to protect their tyres concern the long, fast double right of Turns 6-7 at the end of the third straight, and the downhill left-hand plunge of Turn 11 at the end of the second sector. Lift and coast throughout a stint will also bring tyre life benefits as is typical.

All that considered, Bottas’s pace on fading softs in the sprint, which he admitted were “pretty finished” as he “was trying to squeeze out every single bit I had left” at the finish, was strong.

He maintained his times in the high 1m12s or low 1m13s, while behind, on the same tyre, Sainz could only lap around 0.5s back each time and Verstappen never got a look at passing, even if he “just sat behind basically” knowing he couldn’t get close.

Bottas managed his pace well on the soft, as Sainz initially held Verstappen back

Photo by: Zak Mauger / Motorsport Images

In addition to this, as it heads into Sunday’s grand prix, Mercedes can take heart from Hamilton’s incredible recovery.

For a start, he once again delivered a rousing charge for his team, saying afterwards he’d “used a lot of different things for motivation” and that “you can't ever give up”. It was an extra inspiration to go the extra mile, should any ever be needed at the Black Arrows squad. But Hamilton’s drive also showed that Mercedes has an excellent race car after its one-lap domination on Friday.

“It was also encouraging to see the car working so well again,” said Mercedes’ director of trackside engineering, Andrew Shovlin. “The conditions were quite cool and that may have helped us to follow closely, but it certainly seems that we have good pace around this track.”

Yes, Hamilton was passing cars in a ‘class’ or two beneath Mercedes as he rose from 20th on the sprint race grid, but he did so all while displaying the same tyre management strength as his team-mate (albeit on harder rubber) and showing brilliant straightline speed (he topped the speed trap by 3.6km/h to Nikita Mazepin as the next best, DRS and slipstreams a caveat here).

And Hamilton will have to do quite a lot of the same passing again today. This is thanks to his five-place grid drop, which means he’ll line up 10th, for taking a fifth internal combustion engine part in his power unit allocation pool.

There is inevitably a small performance gain from such a fresh part, which Red Bull puts at 0.2s, but it could also be that Mercedes can afford to run his engine harder now he has a bigger pool to pick from and with just three rounds of 2021 remaining, given that it is degradation in this part of the power unit that is apparently causing so many issues.

In a further boost to Mercedes, Hamilton’s DRS passed post-sprint-race scrutineering this time, but, less cheekily, it can also be noted that the W12 is less draggy than the RB16B – a big factor in the mainly straight-filled first and final sectors at Interlagos. This should give Mercedes extra hope if/when Hamilton goes up against a Red Bull today.

His pace versus Verstappen on the same mediums throughout the sprint race was also comparable – the Red Bull averaging 1m12.698s while Hamilton’s average was 1m12.774s. The obvious caveat here is that Hamilton had to carve his way through the pack, but then again Verstappen also had to do a bit of passing and was then stymied by Bottas’s dirty air, unable to show all he really had pace-wise.

Verstappen got close to Bottas as the softs wore away, but wasn't able to pass and unleash his true pace

Photo by: Mark Sutton / Motorsport Images

“The pace was fine, but you can’t overtake around here,” Verstappen explained. “The tyres just very quickly overheat and you are stuck – especially when the cars are closely matched on pace.”

So, while that’s been ‘so far, so good’ for Mercedes. There is danger coming its way.

Temperatures on Sunday in Sao Paulo are expected to be 6°C hotter than they were for the sprint race, which started later in the day at 16°C, and up by 7°C from Friday qualifying – which was overcast throughout.

Hotter conditions make Mercedes worse given the W12’s inherent rear end instability (although this is much better than earlier in 2021)

A temperature rise benefits Red Bull. For a start, it reduces the risk its drivers will fall out of the tyre performance windows with understeer that causes sliding and therefore tyre overheating – as Verstappen found to his cost in Q3. But hotter conditions also make Mercedes worse given the W12’s inherent rear end instability (although this is much better than earlier in 2021).

The race is set to be a two-stopper switching amongst the two harder compounds, with Red Bull likely to have two cars to use against Bottas – if the starting positions at the front are maintained early-on and Perez can avenge himself on Sainz today.

Hamilton will have to do his bit to catch the leaders with another excellent passing display and avoid making his life harder by overshooting his pitbox at his stops – as he did at one stage in FP2.

But perhaps the biggest danger facing Hamilton and Mercedes today – considering the implications for both world titles in 2021 should they lose any more ground to Verstappen and Red Bull – principally concerns those passes.

Mercedes will be wary of hotter conditions increasing its rear-end instability and working its tyres harder

Photo by: Andy Hone / Motorsport Images

Hamilton was excellent in the sprint race, but could afford to risk just that little bit more while his rivals likely thought twice about defending hard – knowing any contact would impact their chances of starting highest in the race that matters.

“I just didn't need to take any stupid risks trying to defend,” Lando Norris said of Hamilton’s last-lap dive to the McLaren’s inside at Turn 1 at the end of the first race.

So, with that consideration removed, Hamilton will have to avoid a costly collision in any 50-50 moves against drivers with much less to lose when it really matters.

Hamilton will again have to make his way through slower cars on Sunday thanks to a five-place grid penalty

Photo by: Steve Etherington / Motorsport Images