The penultimate race of the season, the São Paulo weekend has kicked off and presents a challenge for the teams and drivers alike. The layout of the circuit has forced the teams to employ lateral thinking on how to achieve the necessary downforce through sectors one and three for the drag up the hill, however, the second sector is really where downforce is king and is the make-or-break of a drive.
Haas F1 Team were first to get a driver on the track with Danish Kevin Magnussen, during his one-hundredth appearance for the team, keen to get down to business as he leads the way out onto the Interlagos circuit as the lights turn green on the first practice session.
Before the session had the chance to get underway, those on grid penalty watch have already had an early one of the weekend, Scuderia Ferrari driver Carlos Sainz Jr. has taken a sixth Internal Combustion Engine, double the permitted number in one whole season. The Spaniard is set for a five-place grid drop which will not take effect during the sprint race, but for Sunday’s main race, an almost identical penalty was served to Mercedes AMG Petronas Formula One Team driver, Lewis Hamilton last year in Brazil.
Fifteen minutes in, the familiar Oracle Red Bull Racing RB18 of current Champion Max Verstappen sat at the top of the timesheet after pushing a lap of 1:13.575 on the hard compound just as the driver completes his tenth lap around the 4.903km Autódromo José Carlos Pace.
The second stint of practice resumed with an equal balance of hard and medium compound tyres, with the medium compound tyre working in favour of Hamilton who slots into a comfortable fourth position three places above team-mate George Russell. Brazil’s new honourary citizen is still 0.470s down on Verstappen, but as we’ve seen before this season, the medium Pirelli rubber unlocks the full potential of the W13, a true match in heaven.
Half an hour into the session the timesheets were shaken up for a brief moment with both Haas drivers splitting the two Red Bulls as Magnussen and Mick Schumacher claimed second and third place. This weekend, Haas is bringing a final update to the VF-22 and the American team arrived in Brazil in high hopes, most notably Team Principal Guenther Steiner who stated he was ‘confident in the cars update’ in the Haas pre-race press release.
The second and third place for Haas however, was short-lived as both Red Bull drivers soon took back the top places, with Sergio Pérez briefly outpacing Verstappen on a burning set of soft compound tyres. Although a concerning radio message from the Red Bull garage alerted engineers and mechanics to the front-end grip of Verstappen’s car. The RB18 looks fairly comfortable at the high speeds but the low-speed drive may need work as Verstappen encountered difficulties “everywhere” except turns 6 and 7, the fast double left in Sector 2.
Hamilton also reports issues with his suspension, stating he’s “floating” around the track which might sound nice, but it explains the serve lack of grip at the rear of his Mercedes which is less than ideal, especially with qualifying for the sprint race looming ahead.
Verstappen and Hamilton aren’t the only ones encountering difficulties, Canadian Lance Stroll was frantic over the radio claiming there was something “seriously wrong” with his Aston Martin Aramco Cognizant F1 Team car, and Scuderia AlphaTauri driver Yuki Tsunoda lacked grip, sliding around the circuit doing his best Bambi on ice impression.
As the clouds closed in, Pérez was the fastest man of the session with Ferrari driver Charles Leclerc narrowly missing out on the top position by a staggeringly small margin of just 0.004s. A very intriguing session with only 0.0008s separating the top three, with Verstappen ending third fastest.
Ahead of qualifying for the sprint race, it’s difficult to tell who is in the best shape with only 0.300s separating the top ten seven of Verstappen, Leclerc, Perez, Sainz, Hamilton, Russell and Aston Martin’s Sebastian Vettel.
Schumacher ended an impressive eighth ahead of Alfa Romeo F1 Team ORLEN‘s Valtteri Bottas, while AlphaTauri’s Pierre Gasly completed the top ten ahead of BWT Alpine F1 Team‘s Fernando Alonso and Williams Racing‘s Alexander Albon.
Esteban Ocon was thirteenth in the second Alpine ahead of the complaining Stroll, while Lando Norris, who was a doubt for the weekend due to illness on Thursday, put his McLaren F1 Team car into fifteenth. Magnussen slipped down to sixteenth at the end, the Dane finishing ahead of Williams’ Nicholas Latifi, Alfa Romeo’s Zhou Guanyu, AlphaTauri’s Tsunoda and McLaren’s Daniel Ricciardo.
As usual, Brazil’s weather conditions can change at a moment’s notice so by the time of qualifying for the sprint things may look very different as the overcast weather seems to be closing in around Interlagos.