Was Hamilton or Verstappen the hero of Brazil?

The sodden Paulista crowd made its feelings emphatically clear. As the red flag flew for the second time, after a period of 'racing' comprising just eight laps, all behind the safety car, they booed and gave the thumbs down. When things eventually resumed again, almost an hour-and-a-half after the race had started under the safety car, they had seen a grand total of five racing laps and a few accidents.

But while it took time to get going, they were rewarded with a chaotic race crowned by a virtuoso victory from Lewis Hamilton. They might not have appreciated the Mercedes driver leading from start to finish, and if you dig into the details his pace was more scintillating even than it appeared, but they certainly would have given their approval to his attitude.

"The track is fine," complained leader Hamilton, in desperate need of a full-points victory to boost his title chances, over the radio when the second red flag came. "It's not even wet now, I don't know why we are stopping," he added shortly after.

Some of his comrades agreed with him, some didn't, but even though the world championship situation meant he would always want to be racing to give team-mate Nico Rosberg the chance to mess up, Hamilton again showed he has no fear in these conditions. "I was generally just chillin' up front," he said on the podium - with the modesty of a true superhuman.

While the race situation, and the current regulations, meant Hamilton could not stamp his mark on this event in quite the same way as he did in his truly great wet-weather victory in the 2008 British Grand Prix, the fact was he destroyed Rosberg. As the man himself put it, "Nico is driving at his best right now, and he had nothing on me".

To put his dominance into context, if you take a sample set of their fastest 20 laps of the race, Hamilton's lap time advantage over Rosberg was a massive 0.617 seconds. And a larger set of laps is even less favourable for the German.

It was a display of wet-weather mastery reminiscent of Hamilton's victory in the 2014 Japanese Grand Prix, a duel between the two Mercedes drivers understandably forgotten amid the Jules Bianchi tragedy.

Then, Hamilton ran second to Rosberg but showed far greater comfort with the rear end moving around before eventually overtaking his team-mate. The bottom line is that he's just better than Rosberg in the wet. Not that he thought the conditions were even that bad.

"This is Formula 1 and the rain conditions are the trickiest conditions," said Hamilton after his 52nd grand prix victory.

"If everyone just went round and didn't make mistakes, it would be too easy and then everyone could do it. We are going at some serious speeds and there is a lot of water to disperse by the tyres and the tyre just struggles; the faster we go, the harder it is for the tyres.

"This wasn't a particularly difficult race in terms of being wet, there's been much worse races in terms of aquaplaning."

Tell that to Marcus Ericsson, Kimi Raikkonen, or Felipe Massa, who all crashed out of the race. Or, for that matter, Romain Grosjean who managed to crash half an hour before the race even started!

These were not easy conditions, no matter what Hamilton says, especially on Pirelli wets that some drivers believe don't cut through the standing water quite as well as they should.

What's terrifying is that so comfortable was Hamilton that he might not even have been being modest. Perhaps it really was that easy for him.

And it's not as if Hamilton has a great record at Interlagos. This was his first victory here in 10 attempts, so it's not a track that has been kind to him even though he did clinch his maiden title here back in 2008.

"It's a hard grand prix to win and today was one of the most difficult in terms of being wet and aquaplaning and everything," said Hamilton, who didn't even make any pitstops during the race, relying simply on the rule allowing tyre changes under red flag conditions to refresh his wets. "It's probably the most smooth-sailing race I've had here in 10 years."

Time and again, he pulverised Rosberg. In each of the three segments the race was divided into, he crushed him.

In the first five laps of green flag racing before Ericsson's shunt, he pulled 3.025s on him. After 16 laps of racing before Massa crashed, he was 18.534s clear. And in the final 16 laps of racing, the advantage was11.455s. So over 37 racing laps, that adds up to an advantage of 33.014s. Mighty.

And let's say the race had gone over 71 racing laps, that would have added up to an advantage of just over one minute, which is not far off Hamilton's 68-second win at Silverstone in 2008. While Rosberg's huge moment on the run out of Juncao on lap 44 cost him over four seconds and slightly distorts the picture, the two simply weren't in the same league.

But that doesn't mean Hamilton was in a class of his own in Brazil. As Hamilton's own team boss, Toto Wolff suggested, another driver was "redefining physics" with his brilliance during the race. Max Verstappen also made his team-mate, Daniel Ricciardo, look ordinary and had to work a lot harder than Hamilton did.

Right from the 'start', Verstappen signalled his intent. He sailed passed Raikkonen's Ferrari to take third place into the Senna S.

"I was trying some different lines and I found a good one, so I knew that if Kimi was not going to take that line, then I had a good chance of overtaking him," said Verstappen.

"That worked out, he couldn't really see what was happening and I pulled out of the spray. Then I could brake on the inside line and pass him."

He then set about Rosberg. An early switch to intermediates after diving into the pits moments before they were closed because of Ericsson's shunt wasn't the right call but it didn't cost him much.

Even less once Raikkonen crashed out of third place at the resulting restart, putting Verstappen back up into third and behind Rosberg.

The ensuing red flags and safety car laps meant that he had to wait until lap 32 to overtake the Mercedes driver. If that sounds a bit slow, bear in mind it was only the sixth racing lap.

This time, the move showcased Verstappen's ability to find the grip - using what are traditionally described as wet lines. Rosberg was a little too greedy on the throttle into Turn 3 and had a wobble, so Verstappen simply went to the outside and flung his Red Bull past the Mercedes.

It was a pass almost contemptuous in its execution to the point where Verstappen might have well been breezing past Rosberg on a sunny day on the motorway.

What was even more miraculous was that, when Verstappen did make a mistake and lost the rear on the kink by the pit entry on lap 38, he managed to keep it out of the wall. He described it as a "50/50" moment, but nobody would dispute that driver skill played a big part in his survival. Stunningly, it didn't even mean Rosberg got back past, with Verstappen just hanging on to second as Rosberg loomed into the first corner.

There was even a point, shortly before that pirouette, when it seemed Verstappen might even be able to bother Hamilton. On lap 34, he carved just over half-a-second out of the leader to close the gap to just one second. For a few tantalising moments, it seemed Verstappen and Hamilton might be on a collision course.

But it was too good to be true and the Mercedes driver responded by banging in his fastest lap of the race so far, 0.669s faster than his previous lap. In fact, it was Verstappen's desire to make a race of it that led to his spin, which he admitted he was lucky to escape without hitting the barrier.

But he had plenty of time to fight with Hamilton later. Or, at least, he might have done had he not dived into the pits for another set of intermediates on lap 43 even though he had fallen just over nine seconds behind the leader. He re-emerged in fifth place having lost positions to Force India's Sergio Perez and Toro Rosso's Carlos Sainz Jr.

Red Bull expected conditions to ease. But they didn't. Even with the safety car being deployed on lap 48 because of Massa's crash in the very place Verstappen had dodged a bullet, it was clear the gamble had failed. So Verstappen pitted under the safety car.

He had a very simple challenge. When the race got back under way with 16 laps to go, he was down in 14th place. Those ahead rapidly fell by the wayside. Esteban Gutierrez, Pascal Wehrlein, Valtteri Bottas, Ricciardo, Daniil Kvyat, Esteban Ocon and Felipe Nasr fell at the rate of one a lap in the first seven laps of the run to the flag. Nico Hulkenberg's Force India took a little longer, with Verstappen taking sixth place with a move up the inside into the Turn 4 left-hander until lap 65.

The next target was Ferrari driver Sebastian Vettel, who had recovered well after an early spin. Verstappen made the move at Juncao, forcing Vettel off onto the grass and, inevitably, triggering complaints over the radio that proved not to be of any interest to the stewards. Verstappen then promptly dispatched Sainz for fourth a lap later into the Descida do Lago.

Again, a Force India proved challenging and Perez looked in no mood to cede third place. Verstappen made his move around the outside of the tight Bico do Pato right-hander. Perez gave him just enough room, and with Verstappen trying to complete the move on the exit kerb, the rear stepped out.

For a moment, it seemed certain he would spear right into the Force India. But Verstappen was onto it in a flash, taking the battle through the Mergulho left-hander that followed immediately and then making sure of third place at Juncao.

It was a breathless charge, and the fact he left Ricciardo trailing nine seconds and five places in his wake having overtaken him along the way shows just how quick the fearless Verstappen was going.

The two Mercedes were too far clear, with Rosberg 10s up the road. You can only imagine what might have happened had Verstappen not made that ill-fated stop for intermediates.

"I got the call to box because I heard Daniel was already gaining a second on the intermediate tyre, so we did a pitstop," said Verstappen of the move.

"But then it started to rain a bit harder than before so the last sector was undriveable; so I had to pit again. I didn't know where I was. I started to pass people and it was very difficult.

"I couldn't see where I was going on the straight and at such high-speeds it's not nice, but we managed to pass a lot of them."

All of this was of little interest to Hamilton, who crossed the line 11.445s clear of Rosberg to make three victories in must-win races on the trot. But the question of which of Hamilton or Verstappen had been the star of the race was the subject of many a discussion afterwards.

Both drove stellar races. But while Verstappen's was far more spectacular, what stood out about Hamilton is that he barely put a foot wrong.

The Red Bull driver could easily have ended the race in the barrier, like so many others, suggesting he still needs to work on toeing the fine line between on the limit and over it.

That was a tightrope that Hamilton walked brilliantly through the stop-start race. Don't believe his claim that it wasn't that difficult. After all, that's exactly what a genius would say about what they consider to be the everyday.