Lando Norris won the Sao Paulo Grand Prix by 14.602 seconds on Sunday, surviving a poor start, a drying track and a late cloudburst at Interlagos, only to be caught out on the podium. After his champagne bottle smashed during the celebrations, sparks from a firework on the platform struck the McLaren driver on the side of the head, according to the BBC. Team principal Andrea Stella said afterwards: “I understand he is all right,” while acknowledging he had not yet spoken to him.
It was the one blemish on a weekend Norris otherwise controlled. He took pole position on Saturday with a lap of 1:27.470, 0.204 seconds quicker than George Russell, in a session interrupted for 1hr 23min in Q1. His third win of the season, and his first since the Dutch Grand Prix in August, came ahead of Max Verstappen, who climbed from 21st on the grid, and Isack Hadjar, who completed the podium for Red Bull.
A race that kept changing
The pole counted for little in the opening seconds. On a damp track and intermediate tyres, Norris made a slow getaway, losing the lead to Kimi Antonelli and also falling behind Liam Lawson of Racing Bulls.
“It was a very tough race, very very tough,” Norris said. “I didn’t have the best of launches off the line.”
He recovered by reading the conditions correctly. Norris switched to slicks at the end of lap 16, a lap before Antonelli, and was about seven seconds behind the new world champion when the decisive moment came. Antonelli spun at Turn 1 at the start of lap 20, and Norris led from there. Russell had already lost 15 to 20 seconds by spinning as he left the pits.
The challenge returned around lap 60, when heavy rain sent the field back on to treaded tyres for the closing stages of the 71-lap race. Charles Leclerc collected a five-second penalty for colliding with Lawson in those final laps, which dropped him to eighth. Norris, managing his margin on a surface that was changing by the lap, did not put a wheel wrong.
“The main thing today was I kept it cool and didn’t make any mistakes and had the pace when I needed to,” he said. “Nice to be back on the top step and what a place to do it as well.”
Verstappen’s drive sets the standard
Norris’s performance had one serious rival for the headlines. Verstappen, who started near the back after a power unit change, was seventh within five laps, and his climb to second earned him Driver of the Day with 31.3% of the vote, ahead of Norris on 11.5%. SportBible’s driver ratings reflected the same split, awarding Verstappen 10 and Norris 9.
The Dutchman has form at this circuit, having won from 17th on the grid in 2024, but he could make no impression on the leader once he reached second. “I don’t know if we picked up some kind of damage,” he said. “Once I got into P2 I couldn’t really make any inroads.”
The top six was completed by Russell, Antonelli and Oscar Piastri, with Mercedes’ fourth and fifth places enough to seal the constructors’ championship with three rounds remaining. Ferrari endured a harder afternoon, with Leclerc eighth and Lewis Hamilton ninth.
What it means for the run-in
Norris’s victory changes nothing at the top of the championship. Antonelli, who succeeded him as world champion by clinching the title in Mexico a week earlier, has 390 points, and Mercedes have their ninth constructors’ crown, moving level with Williams on the all-time list, with 652 points to Ferrari’s 510.
It does, however, give McLaren something tangible from a difficult title defence. Norris has now won back-to-back races at Interlagos and taken three successive poles there, and he moves to 246 points in sixth place. McLaren also remain in a live contest for third in the constructors’ standings, trailing Red Bull 415-398 after each team scored 33 points on Sunday.
Verstappen on 279, Russell on 262 and Hamilton on 261 are separated by 18 points in the race for second in the drivers’ standings, with Las Vegas, Qatar and Abu Dhabi to come. Norris is unlikely to figure in that fight without further wins, but Sunday showed he can still command the most demanding of races, even if the fireworks proved harder to handle than the weather.
Sports journalist and editor at SportsPortal.net. Covers cricket, football, Formula 1, tennis, and basketball with a focus on how global sports connect with Pakistani audiences. Follows the PSL, Pakistan national cricket team, Premier League, and major international tournaments. Has reported on sports for digital audiences since 2021.
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