Andrea Stella: "Another first and fifth place, this time in Brazil. This weekend confirmed we have reversed the trend that seemed to have started at Monza. We have worked hard to get the most out of the package available to us, and the two consecutive victories are the rewards.
"Lando managed the weekend perfectly. Pole position in both Sprint Qualifying and Saturday's Qualifying, and victories in the Sprint race and the Grand Prix. Oscar paid dearly for the penalty he received at the restart, which felt harsh and without which he could certainly have finished on the podium. On our part, we need to carefully analyse whether there was anything we could have done to put him in a position to achieve a better result following the penalty.
"Now we have to focus on the next race in Las Vegas, on a track that, on paper, is not the most favourable for us. The road to achieving our goals is still very long, and today we saw once again that our main rival, Max Verstappen, can never be discounted."
Laurent Mekies: "It was an unbelievable performance from Max today, we all know he did it last year from P17 to win in the wet and it was one of the most extraordinary races one could watch. But this year he almost did it again - from the pitlane, in the dry and, having to make an extra stop with a slow puncture on the first set of tyres. Hats off to him and the Team, they executed a very sharp strategy to get through the field. More importantly, the car was alive again and at the right level of performance. This is not a win but a very positive day for us, everyone has done an amazing job. We took risks, we made mistakes and explored things across the weekend but it is part of the learning process that we feel we need to go racing at the level we want to compete at. The car probably had the pace to fight for the win today, which is exactly what we were looking for when we decided to make the changes overnight. With Yuki, he lost a lot of time today with his ten second penalty and then we made a mistake on our side and incurred another. So, it is a shame that it doesn't seem to be going our way with Yuki. His last stint was strong and if you removed those two penalties, he would have ended up fighting for points. We will be wishing to have a slightly quieter weekend in Vegas but with everyone's support again at track and back home on Campus, we will be ready to fight no matter the circumstances."
Neither Scuderia Ferrari HP driver saw the chequered flag today. Charles was caught up in a multiple collision, taken out of the race by Kimi Antonelli in the very early stages and Lewis Hamilton had to retire the car on lap 37, because of damage sustained earlier in the race. Charles maintained third place off the line, while Carlos Sainz drove into the left side of Lewis' car. The Englishman then made contact with Franco Colapinto, losing his front wing. On lap 2, the Safety Car came out after Gabriel Bortoleto crashed, and Lewis pitted to change tyres and have the front wing replaced. He had lost a lot of downforce because of damage to the floor of his SF-25. When the Safety Car came in all cars rushed into turn 1, where Charles was hit by Kimi Antonelli, who had been pushed by Piastri. The contact broke the Ferrari's front left suspension and Charles had to park his car at Turn 4. Lewis tried to fight on at the back of the pack, but his car was very unstable due to the damage. On lap 14 Lewis, now P17, pitted for Mediums, and a front wing angle change. He rejoined in last place. Lewis was given a 5 second penalty for the collision with Colapinto, which he served on lap 32. The team eventually retired Lewis' car on lap 37.
Fred Vasseur: After an afternoon like this, you have to look at what were the positives from the weekend, even if it is difficult to find any when the season is coming to an end and you have a double DNF: in Sprint Qualifying we got a decent result, in the Sprint race the pace was good and qualifying went well with Charles. It's been a very tough Sunday. I had the feeling that, at least with Charles, we were in a good place but we paid the price for a collision between Antonelli and Piastri, which is very harsh for him and the team. He was in the right place, he was P2 and then he was out. It's disappointing, because he was in a position where he could have fought for P1 or at least the podium. In a situation like this, not only are you losing points, but you are also giving points to the others. With Lewis, he lost a huge amount of downforce, either from the crash with Sainz or when he ended up with the front wing under the floor or from both incidents. Lewis had good pace, but you cannot come back after two crashes. Calling him to retire was logical, as he was last and missing 30 to 40 points of downforce on the car. So, we served the penalty and then retired the car. It is very difficult to draw conclusions from this weekend because of the way it ended. We recovered well after a tricky start on Friday, but this result is a shame for us, a shame for the championship fight, but we now will now head home to Maranello and prepare as well as possible for the final triple header of the year.
Kimi Antonelli took second in today's São Paulo Grand Prix with George Russell scoring solid points in P4. That marks the 19-year-old's second podium of the season and his best result in his F1 career, following on from his P3 finish in Canada earlier this season. Kimi lined up on the front-row, opting to start on the Soft compound tyre with George in P6 on the Medium. The early stages were impacted by several crashes, with the McLaren of Oscar Piastri making contact with Kimi into turn one after a Safety Car restart. The Australian was adjudged at fault and handed a 10-second penalty. A mixture of tyre compounds and strategies were employed in a mixed-up race but, after each driver had made their second stops, Kimi and George were on the Medium tyre running P2 and P3. With George managing brake temperatures, Verstappen used his fresher Soft tyres to take P3 but the Brit successfully resisted the pressure from Piastri to take P4. Kimi meanwhile did similar with Verstappen, holding off the Red Bull despite running on older and harder tyres to take P2. After a strong points haul over the weekend, the team heads into the final triple-header of the season back in P2 in the Constructors' Championship with a 32-point lead over Red Bull with Ferrari a further four points behind.
Toto Wolff, Team Principal & CEO: That was a good way to end a solid weekend here in Brazil. After taking P2 and P3 in yesterday's Sprint, we backed that up with P2 and P4 today. We weren't quick enough to challenge Norris, which we expected pre-race, and the Red Bull clearly solved their issues with their changes under parc fermé. It was therefore good to see Kimi keep Max (Verstappen) behind at the end. He did so on a much older and harder tyre; Max had great pace today so that was no easy task once the Red Bull had got onto the back of us. George also had a faster car chasing him down in the closing stages with Piastri closing in. The McLaren was in DRS range for several laps, but George kept him at bay well to take P4.
We have regained our hold on P2 in the Constructors' Championship as we leave Brazil. Making sure we finish there when the chequered flag falls in Abu Dhabi is our aim. Having a lead over Red Bull and Ferrari as we head into the year-ending triple-header is positive, but we know how quickly things can change. We will keep our feet on the ground, work diligently, and aim to put in another solid weekend next time out in Las Vegas.
Andrew Shovlin, Trackside Engineering Director: Today's result is very welcome following a couple of difficult weekends in Austin and Mexico. It was also great to see Kimi get his first P2 finish in F1.
The race got off to a rather busy start for both drivers. George had a decent start but lost a place around the outside of turn one to a car on the Soft tyre. He was struggling with oversteer which wasn't helped by having to push to get through Lawson and Hadjar. He was able to extend the stint but we decided to commit to two stops and take the Soft tyre in the middle phase. Unfortunately, we didn't quite have the pace to keep Verstappen behind, but he did a great job to hold P4 from Piastri in the closing stages.
Kimi had a relatively uneventful start but the same cannot be said of the Safety Car restart. He was the middle one of three cars into turn one and when Piastri locked on the inside and ran into him, Kimi got knocked into Leclerc. Luckily, we were able to keep going and managed to stay ahead of Piastri at the finish but it was a big hit that seemed to hurt the balance and consistency of the car. Overall, we didn't have the pace to fight for a win today but P2 is very satisfying result for Kimi and 43 points total this weekend is a nice result for the team.
Mike Krack, Chief Trackside Officer: "We knew it would not be easy today and we lacked the pace to compete for points. We tried to do things differently with the strategy - with long opening stints on the Hard tyres - but we were missing the pace to challenge the cars ahead of us. Lance's race was impacted badly by the contact from Yuki [Tsunoda] on Lap 6, which dropped him to the back of the field. We had tried to build a tyre advantage offset for the final stages of the race, but most of the grid stopped twice and there were not many opportunities. We face a close battle in the Championship and we will use the next couple of weeks to regroup before Las Vegas later this month."
Steve Nielsen, Managing Director: "It's another point on the board and a race where we were competitive relative to some of the midfield cars who have been much faster than us all season. Pierre did an outstanding job to put himself in contention with a battling drive and one where he had to be strong in offense and resolute in defence, especially at the end of the race to cling on to that final point. Franco too showed spells of strong pace with his final stint bringing him back into the train of cars which finished in single file right up to the finish line for the points-paying positions. It's a weekend where we must dig deep into the numbers to understand why we had an upturn in performance. There are, of course, some areas we must improve, and will improve, and we have three races remaining to close off the season. We can take some confidence to Las Vegas and hopefully put ourselves in the mix again."
MoneyGram Haas F1 Team finished with Ollie Bearman sixth, and Esteban Ocon 12th, at the São Paulo Grand Prix, held Sunday at Interlagos.
Bearman took the start from eighth place on Pirelli P Zero Red soft tires and held position after an early fight with Pierre Gasly. Bearman profited from the retirement of Charles Leclerc to move into seventh, before passing Liam Lawson for sixth into turn one on lap 13. Bearman pitted on lap 17 for Yellow medium tires, and again on lap 43 for another set of mediums, and worked his way through yet-to-pit rivals to reclaim sixth position. Bearman preserved the place through to the checkered flag to secure his and MoneyGram Haas F1 Team's fourth successive points finish.
Ocon started from the pit lane after a pre-race change of engine, doing so on White hard tires, and was forced into a pit stop on lap eight due to a puncture. Ocon re-emerged on medium tires in P16 but began a fightback, working his way up the order, before making a second stop for another set of mediums on lap 47. Ocon became embroiled in a close fight for the lower points-paying positions, eventually classifying P12, just seven tenths of a second outside of the top 10.
MoneyGram Haas F1 Team holds eighth place in the Constructors' Championship, on 70 points.
Ayao Komatsu, Team Principal: "It's a great result with Ollie, having very strong race pace. Yesterday's qualifying was good, but we knew we had even more pace, so obviously our target was to use that in free air. We went for an aggressive two-strop strategy to get Ollie into that free air, and everyone worked so well together to execute that. Ollie drove a fantastic race, it was very pleasing to watch.
"On Esteban's side, we nearly scored points as well. We had an operational error during the VSC where we picked up a slow puncture, but we should've reacted sooner to pit. Unfortunately, Esteban finished P12 but with the pace he had, he could've been P7, so it's a tough lesson for the team to maximize everything. The positive is that overall, the car is very strong since the Austin update."
James Vowles, Team Principal: A race that had so much promise but did not deliver results. In the case of Carlos, his race was over unfortunately again at turn 1 as a result of contact, damaging the front wing and suffering a significant loss in aero load. He fought valiantly through the race but, with the damage, we were unable to score a point today. With Alex, we didn't get it all right today. There was a point available to us, and lots of different strategies were playing out up and down the grid. He did a brilliant job and P7 was just a few seconds in front of him, but ultimately, we weren't able to capitalise on that. We'll go back, review, make sure we understand how we can make ourselves stronger and head to Las Vegas where I'm confident we'll be back fighting for points.
An ample variety of tyre strategies involving all three compounds helped to make the Brazilian Grand Prix one of the most stunning of the season, with racing right to the finish line.
McLaren's Lando Norris took his second consecutive race win after a perfect weekend to stretch his championship lead, Mercedes driver Kimi Antonelli scored the best result of his young career with second, while driver of the day was Red Bull's Max Verstappen: who finished on the podium after starting from the pitlane.
A key factor to this action-packed race was tyre strategy in the cool and challenging conditions, with intermittent drizzly rain at the start of the day and track temperatures that never exceeded 29 degrees centigrade.
At the start, all three compounds were seen on the grid, with Antonelli in second selecting the soft tyres to try to out-drag polesitter Norris on the mediums. However, a safety car on the opening lap, subsequently followed by a virtual safety car, neutralised the action and also had the effect of reducing energy demands through the tyres at a crucial point In the race with cars full of fuel.
Verstappen, who had started on hard tyres from the pits with a fresh set up and new engine, worked his way up to the midfield before lap 10 but was forced to pit early for the medium after picking up a slow puncture on debris from the many incidents - so had his work cut out all over again.
The fight at the front of the field for most of the race was between the two McLarens, which adopted identical two stop medium-soft-medium strategies: however, Oscar Piastri's progress was blunted by a 10-second penalty for his part in the incident that brought out the virtual safety car.
Verstappen ended up taking a three stop strategy using all three compounds: racing from last to within 10 seconds of the lead at the end of the 71 laps.
While the vast majority of the drivers stopped twice, Liam Lawson (Racing Bulls) and Nico Hulkenberg (Sauber) both finished in the points with two different one-stoppers. In total, there were seven different strategy variants adopted by the 17 finishers.
Mario Isola: "Interlagos always springs surprises and delivers fantastic racing. Last year it was the rain to provide the variable that enhanced the show; this year we saw a wide variety of race strategies, which - combined with the unique characteristics of this track - encouraged even more overtaking than normal.
It was impressive to see Max Verstappen starting from the pitlane and getting onto the podium; the reigning world champion never stops amazing us. Congratulations also to young Kimi Antonelli, who managed to defend his second place bravely, and of course to Lando Norris, who sealed a great win from pole.
As we expected the soft and the medium were favoured, and a two-stop strategy was the most common. The degradation levels on the tyres, combined with some early pit stops to take advantage of the neutralisation periods at the start of the race, probably pushed the teams towards that choice, putting the emphasis on the two softer compounds.
The hard didn't really come into play, as it tended to slide a lot on a surface that had been 'reset' by the rain the morning. The pit stop windows were different for each driver, creating performance differentials that helped overtaking and gave us a great show as a result.
The only two drivers who finished the grand prix with just one stop obviously had to work their tyres harder than the others, who experienced wear and graining levels that were lower than yesterday. Nonetheless, Liam Lawson and Nico Hulkenberg showed today that a one-stopper was also a perfectly valid strategy. And it's been a long time since we saw such a wide variety of strategies using different compounds, from one to three stops, end up scoring points at the end of a dry race."
