F1: Max Verstappen has won the sprint race in Brazil, while Sergio Perez bounced back to get a podium spot.
Sad Sunday truth after McLaren’s victory challenge; Ricciardo’s sprint outburst explained: Talking pointsNovember 5th, 2023 11:11 amLando Norris beat him to sprint pole to begin with, making good on Friday’s wasted potential.
Both drivers were managing their tyres to make the 24-lap distance. It took Verstappen pulling the pin to abuse the soft rubber to stabilise his losses, albeit without Norris dropping back. Russell was 25 seconds behind Verstappen, while Lewis Hamilton was a massive 34 seconds adrift. This race was just 24 laps long.
Russell said the team was left hoping for cooler Sunday conditions to play to its tyre problems, with car set-up locked in and only limited changes allowed before Sunday’s grand prix.“The is the car is not great today, and most likely it will be something similar tomorrow,” he said. “I really have no idea, but it is going to be a real struggle tomorrow.
It must have been doubly frustrating for the fact that Ricciardo’s moves to get ahead were well judged and executed, the sort of side-by-side battling that gets the juices flowing, whereas Sainz’s were anathematic DRS-assisted blasts. But the sport has so far struggled to land on a format that doesn’t disrupt the flow of the weekend towards the grand prix.
And while Brazil delivered one of the season’s best sprint races, its qualifying shootout was flat, with the pole climax seeing most of the top-10 drivers sitting in their garages for most of the eight minutes before setting one flying lap. And the entire qualifying format last longer than the sprint itself.