@GeorgeRussell63 takes maiden victory in @MercedesAMGF1 one-two at a dramatic #BrazilGP. #F1

Russell Brazil GP Victory – George Russell lead home team-mate Sir Lewis Hamilton to his maiden victory in a Mercedes one-two at the Brazil GP as Ferrari’s Carlos Sainz completed the top three.

 

 

Pole-sitter Russell pulled clear at two safety restarts to avoid a fight with his team-mate, who was told he was free to race, as Hamilton recovered from his drop to eighth after tangling with newly-crowned two-time world champion Max Verstappen in what was an action-packed Grand Prix at the Autodromo Carlos Pace.

 

With Red Bull’s day getting worse when Sergio Perez was stuck on the wrong tyre for the last stint, Ferrari capitalised to grab third and fourth – Sainz leading team-mate Charles Leclerc despite the latter complaining to the team to switch drivers round to secure second in the World Driver’s Championship.

 

Similarly, ordered to do so, Verstappen did not give the position back to team-mate Perez on the final tour to lead Red Bull home in sixth and seventh.

 

When the 71-lap Brazil GP began, pole-sitter Russell made a solid getaway off the line keeping team-mate Hamilton behind on the approach to the Senna S and breezed into the lead out front. Behind them, McLaren’s Lando Norris had a rapid start passing medium-tyre starter Leclerc and was side-by-side with both Red Bulls, but somehow the trio avoided contact and Verstappen emerged in-front.

 

Perez ultimately had the MCL36 covered as Russell ran clear from his team-mate, who in-turn had comfortable space over Verstappen before an opening lap safety car.

 

Further back, yesterday’s Sprint pole-sitter Kevin Magnussen, who had finished eighth in the 100km race, appeared slow off turn seven and was clipped in the right-rear by the chasing McLaren of Daniel Ricciardo.

 

This sent the Haas VF-22 racer into a spin and as Magnussen rolled back, he slammed into the Australian – who is without a drive in 2023 – to send the departing McLaren driver into the tyre barriers.

 

When the race resumed on lap six after the clean-up, Russell pulled clear whilst behind him, Red Bull reacted well when Verstappen took the opportunity to take second around the outside of the Senna “S”, but as the corner snaked right, the Dutchman made contact with rival Hamilton.

 

Both took to the run-off area, with Verstappen coming off worse with damage to his front wing and stopped for mediums, whilst Hamilton remained out with suspected floor damage as he fell to eighth.

 

The stewards deemed the Red Bull driver to be at fault and was hit with a five-second penalty.

 

Behind, Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc was in the wars and made the move on Norris into turn seven, but the pairing also made contact, as the McLaren understeered into the side of the F1-75 racer and sent it spinning into the outside barrier.

 

Leclerc was able to continue to prevent another safety car deployment and pitted for mediums, whilst the stewards also gave Norris a five-second penalty.

 

On lap ten Russell held a 1.656 second lead over Red Bull’s Sergio Perez with Sainz a further three seconds in-front of Norris, ninth-starting Aston Martin of Sebastian Vettel up in fifth and the sole-remaining Haas of Mick Schumacher.

 

Hamilton was on the move again, passing four-time world champion Vettel through sector two and then using DRS assistance to overtake Norris into turn one for fifth place, which became fourth when Sainz was forced to come in on the 18^th tour for softs after a visor tear-off caused his right-rear brake duct to catch fire.

 

Meanwhile Russell, was happy on his C4 red side-walled compounds and ordered his team to leave him out as he built a 3.5 second gap to Perez whilst Hamilton was closing in on the Mexican by 0.4 seconds per lap.

 

Red Bull reacted with a solid 2.0 second pit-stop for Perez as he switched to the mediums but re-joined behind Alfa Romeo’s Valtteri Bottas and was hugely delayed by the C42 racer for the rest of the tour.

 

Mercedes reacted by bringing in race-leader Russell the following tour on lap 25 for his swap to mediums, which placed Hamilton on his starting soft rubber into the lead by over ten seconds.

 

The seven-time world champion was a second per tour slower than his Mercedes team-mate and pitted on lap 30 with a 3.3 second change to the C3 yellow-branded mediums. Hamilton emerged in fourth and eight seconds behind Sainz.

 

As temperatures at Interlagos dropped, the Mercedes duo looked to come alive on the medium compounds, as Sainz stopped again to undercut Perez, Russell was lapping 0.6 seconds (to lead by eight seconds) and Hamilton 0.8 seconds faster to close within two seconds reaching the 40^th tour.

 

A solid run through the opening sequence gave Hamilton a shot a Perez into turn four on the 44^th lap, with Perez covering the Briton initially, but then with DRS assistance and a slipstream, the Mercedes driver could out-pace the RB18 up the pit-straight to reclaim second place.

 

Red Bull pitted Perez for mediums on lap 48 and although he continued in fourth place, the powerful undercut forced Mercedes into action as the pairing stopped for a set of C4 softs for the last stint.

 

Hamilton at first protested the call before pitting and lost out to Sainz, whose mediums were now 12 laps old, as Russell re-emerged 1.1 seconds before a virtual safety car deployment.

 

McLaren suffered a double-DNF as Norris pulled off track, which created a window for Sainz to take a cheaper pit-stop and put on a scrub-set of softs for the remaining 17 tours.

 

Then the full safety car was deployed to tighten the pack, and per both Mercedes drivers’ comments before the Grand Prix, no team orders were set to leave Hamilton clear to race his leading team-mate.

 

Russell repeated his earlier work at the second restart of the race by delaying his launch until he was level with the pit-entry line, with both Mercedes W13 entries moving clear of Perez, who had to defend hard against Sainz until DRS was re-enabled and he overtook for third on lap 63 on the back straight.

 

With the Red Bull pre-occupied, Russell lead his team-mate Hamilton home by 1.529 seconds to secure his maiden F1-career victory at the Brazil GP as the Silver Arrows finally got off the mark in the 2022 campaign with a one-two finish.

 

Leclerc was able to relegate Perez further with DRS to give the Scuderia a recovered third and fourth-placed finish, whilst Alpine’s Fernando Alonso – charging in the final stint to overtake his feuding team-mate Esteban Ocon, Bottas and Vettel – added fuel to the Red Bull pain as he snagged fifth six tours from the finish line.

 

On his inferior medium compounds, Perez did not fight team-mate Verstappen into the opening corner as the RB18 duo finished sixth and seventh respectively ahead of Ocon, Bottas, Aston Martin’s Lance Stroll and Vettel – the retiring German also suffering later on with degraded medium rubber.

 

Scuderia AlphaTauri’s Pierre Gasly finished 12^th and ahead of Alfa Romeo’s Zhou Guanyu who was 13^th, Haas F1 Team’s Schumacher who took 14^th and the Williams Racing duo Alexander Albon and Nicholas Latifi who brought up the rear.

---

2022 Brazil GP – The Top Three

 

 

2022 Brazil GP Winner – George Russell, #63, Mercedes AMG Petronas Motorsport, F1 W13 E Performance:

“What an amazing feeling. it’s been an emotional rollercoaster this season, even this race. Lewis was super-fast and when I saw the Safety Car I thought Jesus, this is going to be hard. On the in-lap, the memories come flooding back, starting with my Mum and Dad in go-karting…”

 

2^nd Place – Lewis Hamilton, #44, Mercedes AMG Petronas Motorsport, F1 W13 E Performance:

“We’ve worked so hard this year to get a win, so this is hugely deserved by everybody.”

 

3^rd Place – Carlos Sainz, #55, Scuderia Ferrari, F1-75:

“Overall it was a good race, we had some problems at the start with the brakes on fire. It meant we had to commit to a three-stop which wasn’t the fastest. A good podium after starting P7, we can be happy with that.”

---

Formula 1 Heineken Grande Premio De Sao Paulo 2022 Race Results Classification (71 Laps)

POS	NO	DRIVER	CAR	LAPS	TIME/RETIRED	PTS
1	63	George Russell	MERCEDES	71	1:38:34.044	26
2	44	Lewis Hamilton	MERCEDES	71	+1.529s	18
3	55	Carlos Sainz	FERRARI	71	+4.051s	15
4	16	Charles Leclerc	FERRARI	71	+8.441s	12
5	14	Fernando Alonso	ALPINE RENAULT	71	+9.561s	10
6	1	Max Verstappen	RED BULL RACING RBPT	71	+10.056s	8
7	11	Sergio Perez	RED BULL RACING RBPT	71	+14.080s	6
8	31	Esteban Ocon	ALPINE RENAULT	71	+18.690s	4
9	77	Valtteri Bottas	ALFA ROMEO FERRARI	71	+22.552s	2
10	18	Lance Stroll	ASTON MARTIN ARAMCO MERCEDES	71	+23.552s	1
11	5	Sebastian Vettel	ASTON MARTIN ARAMCO MERCEDES	71	+26.183s	0
12	10	Pierre Gasly	ALPHATAURI RBPT	71	+26.867s	0
13	24	Zhou Guanyu	ALFA ROMEO FERRARI	71	+29.325s	0
14	47	Mick Schumacher	HAAS FERRARI	71	+29.899s	0
15	23	Alexander Albon	WILLIAMS MERCEDES	71	+36.016s	0
16	6	Nicholas Latifi	WILLIAMS MERCEDES	71	+37.038s	0
17	22	Yuki Tsunoda	ALPHATAURI RBPT	70	+1 lap	0
NC	4	Lando Norris	MCLAREN MERCEDES	50	DNF	0
NC	20	Kevin Magnussen	HAAS FERRARI	0	DNF	0
NC	3	Daniel Ricciardo	MCLAREN MERCEDES	0	DNF	0

* Provisional results. Note – Russell scored an additional point for setting the fastest lap of the race.

https://www.formula1.com/en/results.html/2022/races/1137/brazil/race-result.html

 

Click here for the 2022 Formula 1 World Driver’s (Top 10) and Constructors Championship Standings.

 

The final round of the 2022 FIA Formula One World Championship season returns to the Yas Marina Circuit on Yas Island, Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates for the Formula 1 Etihad Airways Abu Dhabi Grand Prix 2022 from Friday November 18-Sunday November 20.

 

****A big apologies to all who were expecting an F1 Sprint and Free Practice 2 report, we were hit with a power outage from a severe thunderstorm on Saturday afternoon and the outage lasted from Saturday right until before race time this morning.****

---

#BrazilGP Qualifying: #Magnussen takes shock sprint pole in damp session. #F1 #SaoPauloGP

#BrazilGP FP1: @SChecoPerez quickest ahead of @CharlesLeclerc. #F1 #SaoPauloGP

#Formula1 @Heineken Grande Premio De Sao Paulo 2022 Preview. #F1 #BrazilGP