Lando Norris won the Sao Paulo Grand Prix by 14.602 seconds on Sunday after Kimi Antonelli and George Russell both spun at a wet, then drying, then wet again Interlagos. The errors cost Mercedes the race but not the prize: fourth for Russell and fifth for Antonelli were enough to clinch the 2026 constructors’ championship with three rounds to spare.
Max Verstappen finished second for Red Bull after starting 21st, with team-mate Isack Hadjar third. Norris’s third win of the season was his second in succession at the circuit and his first since the Dutch Grand Prix in August.
Two spins hand Norris control
Norris had taken pole for the third straight year at Interlagos, but he lost it within seconds on a damp track with the field on intermediate tyres. Antonelli, crowned world champion in Mexico a week earlier, went past into the lead and Liam Lawson’s Racing Bulls also got through.
“It was a very tough race, very very tough,” Norris said. “I didn’t have the best of launches off the line.”
The decisive phase came as the track dried and the leaders gambled on slicks. Norris pitted at the end of lap 16, when he was about seven seconds behind Antonelli, who stopped a lap later. Russell’s switch to slicks ended almost immediately, with a spin on the damp pit exit costing him 15 to 20 seconds.
Antonelli’s lead lasted only until the start of lap 20, when he lost the car on the way into Turn 1 and Norris swept through. The 20-year-old told his team the car felt strange under acceleration, but Mercedes put the problem down to tyre temperature. He ran wide at the same corner on lap 24, letting Verstappen by, and later collected a five-second penalty for an unsafe pit release.
Norris was not seriously threatened from there, even when heavy rain returned from around lap 60 and forced the field back on to treaded tyres for the closing stages of the 71-lap race.
“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.
The only real scare came afterwards. A bottle smashed on the podium and sparks from a platform firework struck the side of his head during the celebrations. McLaren team principal Andrea Stella said: “I understand he is all right,” though he had not yet spoken to his driver.
Verstappen’s charge and a costly day for Ferrari
Verstappen was seventh within five laps and took 31.3% of the Driver of the Day vote. The drive recalled his win here in 2024 from 17th on the grid, though this time he had nothing left for the leader.
“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.”
Hadjar, told to let his team-mate through in the late 30s, still secured a podium, and Red Bull’s 33 points matched McLaren’s haul. Oscar Piastri finished sixth for McLaren.
Mercedes swapped their drivers late on to put Russell ahead of Antonelli. Ferrari, the only team who could still have delayed the title, took just six points. Charles Leclerc’s five-second penalty for colliding with Lawson dropped him behind the New Zealander to eighth, and Lewis Hamilton finished ninth, a lap down.
A ninth title for Mercedes, and what is left to settle
The championship is Mercedes’ ninth and their first since the run of eight in a row ended in 2021, drawing them level with Williams and behind only Ferrari and McLaren on the all-time list. They lead Ferrari 652-510 and, with Antonelli becoming the youngest drivers’ champion in the sport’s history at 20 years and 68 days, have completed a double that seemed remote during the ground-effect era.
“It’s amazing,” team principal Toto Wolff said. “We have taken a few years to be back at the top spot.”
Sunday was also a reminder that the margin of their season has come from the car as much as its drivers. In changeable conditions, both of them made the kind of mistakes a closer title fight would have punished.
For Norris, the 2025 champion, the win offers some consolation in a defence that has long since gone. He is sixth in the standings on 246 points, 144 behind Antonelli. The live battles are further down: Verstappen holds second on 279, with Russell on 262 and Hamilton on 261 separated by a single point, while Red Bull lead McLaren 415-398 for third in the constructors’ table.
Those fights resume at the Las Vegas Grand Prix on 22 November, before the season closes in Qatar and Abu Dhabi.
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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