Lewis Hamilton: From Last to First in Brazil

São Paulo, Brazil – On the weekend filled with penalties and fines, Mercedes’ Lewis Hamilton takes the São Paulo Grand Prix in a very heated race between him and Red Bull’s Max Verstappen. Hamilton started from Position 10 on the grid and rose to take the win. Valtteri Bottas from Mercedes took third, while Sergio Perez from Red Bull took the fastest lap on the last lap to take a point away from Hamilton and help out Red Bull in the Constructors Championship.

Hamilton Started the weekend as the underdog as he had an engine penalty going into the weekend. Things got worse as he was disqualified from the Qualification session on Friday when it was discovered that he had a higher section on his Drag Resistance System than the standard 85mm—sending him to the back of the grid on Saturday’s Sprint session. Against the odds, he cut his way through the grid and finished the 100km/24 lap session from Pos. 20 to fifth, which Mercedes Team Boss Toto Wolf described as “damage limitation.” 

With getting the fifth position on the Sprint, the engine penalty put Hamilton in Pos. 10. Historically, no one has ever won a race from further than Pos. 8 at the Brazilian track since it was 2003. Hamilton was up to the challenge as he pushed past five positions in the first lap. On Lap 19, Hamilton took over the second position for Perez and began a long 18 lap battle with Verstappen that at one point saw the Dutchman push Hamilton off the track as the Brit tried to overtake on the fifth turn. 

No penalty was implemented, but it wouldn’t have been necessary as on Lap 59 Hamilton took the lead until the checkered flag to claim his world record 101st win in Formula One. Hamilton Then took the Brazilian flag and did a lap to the Hamilton favored crowd, all while wearing the colors of Aryton Senna on the Brit’s helmet. 

Verstappen still leads in the Driver’s Championship with 332.5 points over Hamilton’s 318.5 points. Still, there are three races left in one of the closest championship rivalries that Formula One has seen since the 1976 season between Niki Lauda and James Hunt. The next race weekend will take place on November 19-20 will it will be hosted in Qatar. 

Lance Stroll and Lando Norris

Of all the racers of the track, it could be understood if the decision of who had the most challenging time on the track this weekend would have been a split decision between Aston Martin’s Lance Stroll, and McLaren’s Lando Norris. 

Let’s start with Norris. In the first 100 meters of the first lap, Norris tried to get an advantage over Ferrari’s Carlos Sainz’s slow start and tried to go on the outside on the straight. Sainz feeling the pressure from his teammate Charles Leclerc, and most getting squeezed by the two cars, decided to push out towards Norris, making contact with his left rear tire, causing a puncture. This caused Brit to do a slow first lap, trying to keep damage to a minimum and then pit to change to the hard compound tires and throwing all strategy to the wind. 

Not only that, his team’s fight for third in the Constructors Championship was put in even more jeopardy as his teammate Daniel Riccardo had an engine failure and didn’t finish the race at Lap 50. Norris could only get his team one point for the whole weekend and severely put a gap between McLaren and Ferrari.

Stroll had similar woes, and on the third lap, AlphaTauri’s Yuki Tsunoda made contact with Lance Strolls’ side pod that caused a safety car to be deployed, so the stewards could clean up debris that the cars had made. This damage would cause the virtual safety car to be deployed at least once more as debris would continue to fly off the car from much of the race. 

In the end, Stroll would retire the car on Lap 48 due to the damage being too tremendous and losing time due to the damage ending his weekend that showed the Canadian great promise.