It’s sometimes the case in Formula 1 that the most interesting races produce the most miserable drivers — and there was a fair bit of misery on track as the field took the chequered flag at the Sao Paulo Grand Prix
Max Verstappen was committing a minor mutiny by ignoring team orders, sending Red Bull Racing into meltdown and freeing Sergio Perez to say a bit more of what he really thinks of being teammates with the Dutchman.
Charles Leclerc was slamming his team for not allowing him past Carlos Sainz for a spot on the podium to bolster his chances of finishing runner-up in the championship.
Watch every practice, qualifying and race of the 2022 FIA Formula One World Championship™ live on Kayo. New to Kayo? Start your free trial now >
McLaren, by this stage already deep into the post-race pack-up, had seen a massive swing against it in the battle for fourth in the constructors championship.
Haas was tallying up a single point for the toil that earnt it pole on Friday after a race that lasted less than one lap Kevin Magnussen.
Even the Alpine drivers briefly threatened to reopen the still fresh wounds of 24 hours earlier by intimating that they’d be ignoring team orders.
But like a beacon in the rapidly fading light of the late afternoon in Sao Paulo, Mercedes’s pure joy outshone the misery occupying so much of the rest of the field.
It had been a perfect Sunday for the German team, which won its first grand prix of the year at the 21st time of asking and claimed its first one-two finish in more than two seasons.
And of course the satisfaction was greatest for George Russell, a grand prix winner at last in an impressive first season racing at the front.
But such was the chaos at Interlagos that that wasn’t necessarily the race’s biggest story.
VERSTAPPEN MAKES MASSIVE POWER GRAB AT RED BULL RACING
“Max, what happened?” Gianpiero Lambiase radioed Verstappen as he crossed the line ahead of Sergio Perez.
For long-time viewers of the sport, the radio call had an eerie resemblance to one we’ve heard before on the Red Bull Racing frequency.
“There will be some explaining to do,” Guillaume Rocquelin told Sebastian Vettel on the cool-down lap at the 2013 Malaysian Grand Prix, the German having blasted past Mark Webber to win the race despite the Australian having been told both drivers would leave their engines turned down.
Both Verstappena nd Vettel had ignored direct and explicit team orders.
Vettel received no real punishment for it. Verstappen won’t either.
But there are some clear differences between the two cases, and that’s where it’s particularly interesting — and telling.
In 2013, when Vettel beat the hamstrung Webber, he could at least argue that Mark was a title contender and that they ought to have been allowed to fight it out, particularly given it was a battle for the lead.
This weekend Verstappen and Perez were squabbling over sixth place, and only Sergio had anything on the line in the championship standings given both Verstappen and the team had long ago sewn up their respective titles.
Max flat out refuses to help teammate! | 00:47
Verstappen would’ve lost nothing but a pair of meaningless points for letting his teammate past. By not doing so he cost Perez second in the standings.
It looked particularly petulant given he’d also just been waved through by Perez a few laps earlier because they were each on different strategies.
Not returning the position considering all that context came across as petty — and that’s before accounting for all the times Perez helped Verstappen in the last two years, including his pivotal holding up of Hamilton in last year’s title decider.
“After all I have done for him, it is a bit disappointing, to be honest,” Perez said. “I am really surprised.”
Verstappen said he wouldn’t oblige Perez because of “reasons” he wouldn’t elaborate to the media and reportedly didn’t divulge in a behind-closed-doors team meeting.
But Verstappen knows it doesn’t really matter. He knows, as the whole team does, that Red Bull Racing is built around him, not Perez. If Sergio wanted to cause internal ructions, it would only be a self-defeating strategy by weakening his own internal position, even if he wins the moral high ground.
In that way the Sao Paulo Grand Prix wasn’t so much a mutiny by Max Verstappen as it was a reminder of where the power really lies.
MERCEDES BACK ON THE WINNERS LIST
It would’ve been unimaginable after last year’s chaotic Saudi Arabian Grand Prix, Lewis Hamilton’s eighth win of the season and third in a row, that Mercedes wouldn’t win again for 343 days.
It would’ve seemed similarly unlikely at the 2020 Emilia-Romagna Grand Prix that the team would go more than two years without another one-two finish.
It was the frustration of those numbers that was finally released in parc fermé in Interlagos.
This year has been a shocker by the standards of Mercedes’s last decade. The car hasn’t simply underperformed; the W13’s problems have seemingly actively attempted to evade the team’s grasp for much of the year.
But finally things clicked with a final update applied at the United States. Across three different tracks — Austin, Mexico City and now Interlagos — the car has been quick enough to contend for podiums and even stretch for victories.
In Brazil it put together its most complete weekend in a very long time.
Yes, there are caveats.
The sprint weekend format puts a lot of emphasis on the single hour of practice on Friday, the only track running teams gets before car configuration is locked.
Mercedes rolled out of the garage for FP1 looking quick and ultimately reaped the rewards. Red Bull Racing didn’t nail its set-up and struggled with tyre degradation. Likewise Ferrari. That set the tone for the sprint and the grand prix.
Verstappen then picked up damage early in the race battling with Hamilton. Leclerc was put into the wall by Lando Norris and had to make an early pit stop. Sainz had to be switched to a slower strategy thanks to a visor tear-off getting caught in one of his brakes.
But that by no means cheapens this victory.
Neither the Ferrari nor the Red Bull Racing machine looked a match for Mercedes anyway.
Russell’s victory also closes the chapter of the 2020 Sakhir Grand Prix, his first for Mercedes.
He came extremely close to taking pole and led the race comfortably before a series of strategic blunders and then a late puncture dropped him to a deeply unsatisfying ninth.
His full-time debut this season has obviously been coloured by the car’s lack of competitiveness.
But finally that potential has been fulfilled with a controlled and hard-earned victory, acing his start, nailing both restarts and then fending off seven-time champion Hamilton for victory.
His control of the race speaks to the car’s potential. The W13 has finally been cracked, and with stable rules next season, all the knowledge from this campaign will translate into a more competitive 2023.
If this was a glimpse of 2023, rival teams will be reconsidering how restful their off-seasons might be.
THE RUNNER-UP BATTLES TIGHTENS
Verstappen’s reluctance to help Perez in Brazil means that the Mexican has lost second place in the drivers championship to Leclerc ahead of the final race of the season.
They’re equal on 290 points apiece, but Leclerc’s tally of three wins puts him ahead on countback.
It sets up a pretty tidy showdown in Abu Dhabi. Whoever finishes ahead will claim the position.
It also neatly means Verstappen almost certainly won’t be called upon to help his teammate given there’s no complex mathematics involved.
But the picture could’ve been better for Leclerc, who was embroiling himself in a team orders drama of his own late in the race.
The Monegasque had been punted out of third place at the restart by an errant Lando Norris and had embarked on a superb recovery, aided by the late safety car, to be running fourth behind teammate Carlos Sainz at the end of the race.
Several times he pressed his pit wall to be let past, but each time he was denied.
Ferrari’s logic was that Fernando Alonso, who was less than two seconds behind him, would’ve been a threat to both in an orchestrated move. Leclerc was also several seconds behind Sainz and falling further back each lap.
There was also a bigger factor at play. While second place for Leclerc would be consolation for the season, securing second ahead of Mercedes is absolutely critical.
Ferrari finishing behind Mercedes in the constructors standings would be extremely embarrassing.
The SF-75 was the undoubted fastest car for the first half of the year while Mercedes struggled badly.
Finishing third in the teams title wouldn’t underscore just the lost title bit but also the team’s colossal wasted chances in 2022. It would be a disaster.
Risking a three-four finish to Alonso behind or even some clumsy miscommunication was never on the cards with Mercedes finishing first and second.
The team’s sole focus now is on maintaining its 19-point advantage in the final race of the year.
FORTUNES REVERSE IN ALPINE-McLAREN DUEL
On Saturday night it felt as though Alpine was on the brink of civil war. Its drivers had crashed into each other twice and fallen well outside of the points, thereby putting them low on the grid, while McLaren had performed strongly and looked set to make a big statement in their exclusive battle for fourth in the standings.
But McLaren’s day started badly and ended worse.
Daniel Ricciardo put himself out of the race almost immediately with a clumsy passing attempt on Friday pole-getter Magnussen. He would’ve survived the original tag but was careered into by the out-of-control Haas as he tried to avoid the carnage of his own making, putting both out of the race.
Ricciardo will serve a three-place grid penalty in his final race for McLaren and possibly of his Formula 1 career this weekend in Abu Dhabi, a penalty few could argue with.
Lando Norris came close to the same fate at the first safety car restart when he punted Leclerc into the barrier. Both cars could continue, and he was handed a five-second penalty for causing the crash, but his McLaren ground to a halt with an electrical problem while running out of the points.
Alpine had no such execution problems, however — a welcome break from usual programming.
Both Ocon and Alonso made good progress early in the race, and perhaps motivated to separate the drivers, the team gave each a different strategy.
Alonso made the most of his three-stop strategy to rocket from 17th to fifth. Ocon used his more conventional two-stop to rise from 16th to eighth.
Ricciardo crashes out on opening lap! | 00:38
There was a brief flashpoint at the final safety car, when Ocon was told in no uncertain terms that he would be letting past Alonso, on a quicker strategy, once the race resumed. He argued at first before compromising — they’d both pass Sebastian Vettel ahead and then swap positions.
Otmar Szafnauer, who slammed both drivers on Saturday night — along with upper management, according to reports — must’ve breathed a sigh of relief when his drivers complied.
It was 14 points in the bag, stretching the team’s lead over McLaren to 19 with one race remaining.
You’d never say it out loud, but that’s as close to a knockout blow as either team was ever likely to get.
A goal achieved with a bit of teamwork. Imagine that.
