Luke’s Weekend Take – Brazilian GP 2023

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San Paolo Sprint Showdown: F1 Brazilian GP Round 21 - Pitlane Drama, Regulation Twists, and a Rain-Soaked Qualifying

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We are back in San Paolo at the Autódromo José Carlos for the Brazilian GP for Round 21 of the 2023 F1 season and we have our last sprint weekend of the season where teams will get 2 less tyre allocation compared to a normal weekend.

After some issues experienced in the last 2 races where drivers were stopping in the pitlane during qualifying and practice causing traffic jams in the pits while also disrupting other drivers programmes, FIA have come up with a new regulation that drivers are not allowed to stop in the pitlane however they are allowed to drive slowly between the pit exit line and the 1st Safety Car line in order to form a gap but I’m sure that the FIA will be on it this weekend and we might see some penalties being handed out if drivers don’t abide.

With this race being a sprint weekend, it also comes with further complications for teams to ensure they get all their testing done in the one session they have which is FP1. All drivers started queuing up at the end of the pitlane to get out on track as soon as possible. Max Verstappen came on the radio saying that his seat was flexing while driving which meant that the seat was not installed correctly, his engineer GP confirmed that it was safe to stay out and for them to tackle the matter later in the session.

During the session, Fernando Alonso got some bad news over the radio as his engineer told him that his hard tyres picked up a puncture which could be quite costly for him given the fact that Hard is the tyre which will probably be most favoured in the race and each driver only gets 2 sets of this tyre. Later in the session we see a remarkably close call between Lando Norris and Nico Hulkenberg as we see the pair touch tyres and fortunately no damage was picked up by any of the drivers. This happened after Hulkenberg was driving slowly on the racing line and Norris was on a fast lap who had to try and go round Hulkenberg but overshot the last corner slightly and once Hulkenberg turned in, he found the Mclaren of Norris and touched. The Stewards noted this incident however no further action was taken. Hulkenberg faced some further issues later in the session as his Haas lost power as he went over the kerb on Turn 4 and a poof of smoke came out of the back of the car. Hulkenberg pitted and Haas got on with fixing the issues.

Down at Williams we saw Logan Sargeant have some issues as he was complaining on the radio that his front wheels are coming off the ground which for an F1 car is not ideal given the grip those tyres give. After complaining about the same thing again the team did identify a rear suspension issue, and this was followed by a slow-motion clip of Sargeant going round a corner and you could clearly see the front wheels were coming off the ground. Carlos Sainz tops the leaderboard in FP1 followed by Charles Leclerc and George Russell, teams now will focus on doing some final tweaks to the set ups ahead of qualifying later on Friday.

We head now into qualifying, and the start is delayed by 15 mins as the track was still being cleaned from the previous sessions and while waiting for the start we got a message saying that there is 60% chance of rain in qualifying. Drivers are out in Q1 and while going round and it wasn’t long before we hear Max on the radio reporting that the car is jumping like a kangaroo comparing to what he had in Mexico.

The stewards are busy straight away as they note down George Russell, Pierre Gasly and Esteban Ocon will be investigated after the session for impeding in the pitlane for not staying left as per the new instructions by the FIA. After the first rune in Q1 we see most drivers having to go back out on a new set or softs as track evolution was huge and teams were not confident that their initial lap was good enough as all but the top 2 went back out for a new lap. With 1:30 mins left some drops of rain were reported but nothing too big for drivers to swap out their softs to inters. At the end of Q1 we lose Yuki Tsunoda, Daniel Ricciardo, Valtteri Bottas, Logan Sargeant and Zhou Guanyu. Tsunoda was straight on the radio saying that Lewis Hamilton should be getting a penalty for impeding, but nothing came of this as we did not see any replays to confirm Yuki’s claims.

In Q2 we didn’t have that much drama however Alex Albon’s luck was not so good again as he had a lap time deleted as he went wide on Turn 4 so he was unable to get out of Q2 for the 2nd time running for the same reason. In Q2 we end up losing Nico Hulkenberg, Esteban Ocon, Pierre Gasly, Kevin Magnussen and Alex Albon. Ahead of Q3 Leclerc comes on the radio to ask when the rain is expected as the sky was getting darker and his engineer reports that 7 mins into the session it should be coming. With that in mind, drivers didn’t want to waste too much time and got their laps underway in Q3 to put down a banker lap in case the rain comes early. And early was the rain as towards the end of the flying laps the rain started coming down and Oscar Piastri had a moment as he lost his car on the penultimate corner as he spins onto the grass due to the track being slippery and the wind shifting. This brought out the yellow flags and because Sergio Perez was the last driver out in Q3 he had to back out and couldn’t improve his lap.

The rain started to get heavier, and we even hear Alonso on the Radio saying that is nighttime referencing how dark it got and moments later the FIA decide to Red Flag the session and to not continue it as well. This meant that the first laps that drivers did will decide the order for the race on Sunday. Max Verstappen takes pole followed by Charles Leclerc, Lance Stroll, Fernando Alonso, Lewis Hamilton, George Russell, Lando Norris, Carlos Sainz, Sergio Perez and Oscar Piastri form the top 10. After the session, the Stewards handed out 2 place grid penalties to Russell, Ocon and Gasly for impeding in Q1 in the pitlane and not staying left, this means that Russell will now start the race on Sunday in 8th place while Ocon and Gasly will be pushed back to 14th and 15th.

Sprint Session Surprises: Brazilian GP's Dramatic Turn of Events and Ocon-Alonso Clash - Who Takes the Blame?

We head now into the Saturday sessions where it is all about the sprint and the weather has cleared, SQ1 gets under way and it wasn’t long before we had some drama, after the 1st flying laps from the drivers we were coming to the end of the 2nd flying laps before we see the double yellow flags being waved with 30 seconds left on the session as we cut into a shot of Ocon in the barriers near Turn 3. After a replay was shown we see that Ocon and Alonso came together throwing Ocon in the barriers and a puncture and some damage to Alonso’s car. The incident happened as Ocon had a moment on Turn 2 as the car for Ocon lost its rear end and while correcting the mistake, Ocon went straight into Alonso’s car, however Alonso seemed that he could have left a bit more space for Ocon. Ocon was straight on the radio blaming Alonso however from my point of view I think that because Ocon was not in control of his car, the fault will mainly lie on him. What do you think, was it Ocon’s fault or Alonso’s fault?

After the incident, the session was Red flagged and session will not be resumed due to the amount of time left on the clock. We end up losing Esteban Ocon, Lance Stroll, Zhou Guanyu, Alex Albon and Logan Sargeant as Sargeant reports that he was impeded in the middle sector by one of the Haas drivers.

SQ2 start was delayed as the stewards needed to fix the tyre barriers and clear up the debris from the crash. Unfortunately for Alonso the car was not ready in time, and he had to miss out in SQ2 meaning he will start the sprint in 15th place. In SQ2 we lose Magnussen, Hulkenberg, Gasly, Bottas and Alonso. In SQ3 despite some drivers having 2 sets of softs no one comes out for the first runs and everyone waited for the last few minutes and off they went for a one lap shootout, Verstappen was rushing and over taking people at the exit of the pits as he didn’t want to get stuck in traffic and get his lap underway. After all the flying laps were done it was Norris who got pole for the sprint followed by Verstappen, Perez, Russell, Hamilton, Tsunoda, Leclerc, Ricciardo, Sainz and Piastri.

The track is all set for the 24 lap Sprint Race ahead of us and after a formation lap the green flag is waved at the back of the grid and it was lights out and away they went. Norris got off the line well but the 2nd stage of the getaway onto turn 1, Verstappen had better grip and by turn 1 he was already into the lead and past Norris, behind them we also see Hamilton gets past Perez by Turn 4 and later on the lap Russell also gets past Norris putting Norris in 3rd from 1st in 1 lap.

By lap 3 Perez had started coming back at Hamilton and by lap 4 the DRS of Perez was too strong to keep him behind on the main straight and by Turn 1, the Red Bull of Perez was ahead of Hamilton. Hamilton tried to fight Perez into Turn 4 but he didn’t have enough speed to get past him, by doing this Hamilton put himself slightly out of position and nearly lost another place to Leclerc but was able to hold him off.

Norris on lap 5 managed to get past Russell again claiming 2nd place again as Russell drops out of DRS from Verstappen which put him in Norris’s reach. Norris wasn’t the only one making moves at this stage of the race as we see Alonso doing a few overtakes in the beginning of the race making it from 15th to 12th in 6 laps with some nice overtakes. On lap 7 we get a concerning message from Albon saying that there is oil coming out of the back of Bottas’s car which could make the track slightly slippery for the rest but could also mean that Bottas might have some reliability issues coming up potentially in tomorrow’s race. The other concerning message was around lap 7 where both Ferraris were being told to lift going into corners due to the car running a bit hot which again could be some reliability issues coming up towards the end of the season.

Sergio Perez after a bit of a bad start managed to get his head down and by lap 8 he was able to get back to 3rd place as he gets past Russell into Turn 1, this however was short lived as Russell was able to get him back by Turn 4. Perez 2 laps later was able to seal the deal and on lap 10 he managed to get past Russell again into Turn 1 but this time was able to keep Russell behind him by Turn 4 and after this, he was able to put his head down and get on with his race. Perez was not the only one finding it difficult to overtake into Turn 1 and stay ahead into Turn 4 as on lap 12 we see a great move by Ricciardo to get past Sainz but the Spaniard was able to get past the Australian into Turn 4, on lap 14 they were able to repeat the same overtakes but this time Ricciardo came out worse as he also lost another place to Piastri on lap 14 as Ricciardo got a bit out of shape after attacking Sainz.

Alonso was putting an absolute masterclass with his driving in the Sprint Race as on lap 14 he manages to have a 3-corner battle with Gasly to get him up into 11th place. After a few quiet laps, on lap 21 we see Leclerc get remarkably close to Hamilton and past him into Turn 1 as Hamilton is seen struggling for rear tyre grip and a lap later on lap 22 Tsunoda gets past Hamilton while his teammate Ricciardo was able to get past Piastri. It seems that Alpha Tauri managed to keep their rear tyres in a better state than the rest of the grid. This might give them better hope for tomorrows race where they could land double points for the Alpha Tauri Team.

Max Verstappen takes the chequered flag followed by Lando Norris, Sergio Perez, George Russell, Charles Leclerc, Yuki Tsunoda, Lewis Hamilton and Carlos Sainz form the top 8 for the Sprint. This Sprint race gave us loads of action and overtakes which gives me good hope for tomorrow’s race. Who do you think will come out on top tomorrow? Will Verstappen be able to repeat his performance in the Sprint and get another Victory to extend his World Record or will someone else be able to clinch the top step on the podium come tomorrow? I’ll see you guys in the post-race review to find out.

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