Skill or luck? Max Verstappen data reveals truth behind Brazil GP victory

Max Verstappen broke his 10-race winless streak since the Spanish GP with a masterclass in the rain at the Brazilian GP.

However, despite his strong performance from start to finish, fortune was also on his side and a red flag caused by Franco Colapinto opened the door wide to his chances of victory.

How Max Verstappen won the Brazilian Grand Prix

Verstappen started the race in P17 officially – P16 technically because of Alexander Albon’s DNS – and he made up six positions in a matter of a lap with a wonderful manoeuvre around the outside of Turn 3 where he overtook Oliver Bearman, Franco Colapinto and Valtteri Bottas.

The Red Bull driver took advantage of Lewis Hamilton’s bouncing problems to easily overtake the Mercedes driver on the second lap to get into the points. In other words, seven positions recovered in two laps and in wet conditions. Simply sensational.

From here on, the comeback started to become a bit more difficult for Verstappen, who had to deal with drivers on track who were highly motivated after achieving unnatural qualifying positions for the performance of their cars. It wasn’t until lap 5 that he was able to get past Pierre Gasly, despite several laps in the rear of his Alpine.

On lap 6, he was able to get rid of Fernando Alonso, who did not put up any opposition. The Spanish driver knew that his fight in the race was not against Verstappen. The Dutch driver climbed up to eighth position with Oscar Piastri as his next target +2.7s ahead.

And if Verstappen’s initial lap wasn’t enough, the great skill and pace shown to overtake Oscar Piastri on lap 10 was really a reflection of Max’s superiority in tricky track conditions and the hunger he had for a comeback.

At the end of lap 11 he also overtook Liam Lawson to gain P6, who, believe it or not, was not exactly tame in his defence of Verstappen and fought as hard as he could until the Red Bull driver got brave enough to make a move on the inside of Turn 8.

On lap 14, Verstappen encountered his biggest obstacle so far in the form of Charles Leclerc. The Ferrari driver in turn was blocked into a ‘train’ led by Yuki Tsunoda and Esteban Ocon who were defending their more than valuable positions. In this group of four cars, it was clear the Red Bull driver had the most pace to pull ahead in search of the leading positions.

However, Max was to make no further progress. On lap 25, Leclerc pitted to attempt an undercut on Ocon and Tsunoda. But the Monegasque fell behind Lewis Hamilton and in a situation of heavy traffic. Not ideal and this is why Red Bull didn’t decide to use this strategy or why McLaren decided to ignore Lando Norris’ suggestion to stop for a fresh tyre as well.

On lap 28, the Virtual Safety Car was deployed due to Nico Hülkenberg’s off-track run at Turn 1, which George Russell and Lando Norris took advantage of in the final moments of the lap to put on a fresh set of intermediate tyres with enough grip and capacity to evacuate the greater amount of water on track and save some valuable time against those drivers who could not take advantage of the VSC, such as Max Verstappen, Esteban Ocon and Pierre Gasly.

Unfortunately for the top three and fortunately for the latter three drivers, the Virtual Safety Car caused by Hülkenberg ‘evolved’. Firstly, it became a safety car due to the large amount of water and low visibility on the track, and then a red flag due to an accident involving Franco Colapinto. This caused the race to be neutralised, all drivers returned to the pitlane and Verstappen, Ocon and Gasly were able to change tyres, keeping them in the top 3 of the race.

In this situation, Yuki Tsunoda was very unlucky to change to the extreme wet tyre as there was a lot of water on the track just as the VSC finished. It was a short term success as he was five seconds faster than the drivers on the intermediate tyre just one lap later in the first sector.

It was a brave decision that, without the Safety Car deployment and Colapinto’s accident, would have given Tsunoda a big advantage in a restart with similar track conditions. But it ‘backfired’ on VCARB because if they had stayed on track like Red Bull and Alpine did once the VSC period was over, they could have had the virtual P2 just ahead of Verstappen before the red flag and made the tyre change in the pitlane, keeping them in contention for the podium.

Still, great result for VCARB with a P8 finish for Tsunoda and Liam Lawson P9, cutting big points to Haas and only two points away from fighting for seventh position against the American team in the Constructors’ Championship and five away from Alpine in sixth.

The big winners from staying on track were the three drivers who finally made the podium. The red flag saved them from compromising their race enormously, because after regrouping with the Safety Car, they still had to make their stop and stopping with a packed group would have lost them a lot of time.

Only an increase in rain that would have forced everyone to make a second pit stop to fit the extreme wet tyre without a Safety Car on track would have benefited them in that race situation.

But Verstappen also had the luck of the champion to complete a historic comeback. Not since Kimi Räikkönen at the 2005 Japanese GP had we seen a race comeback from P17 on the grid. Only the Finnish driver, back then racing for McLaren, and John Watson at the 1982 Detroit GP had achieved such a feat until Max Verstappen did it again at the Brazilian GP in 2024.

After the red flag, Max only had to overtake Ocon after the restart of a Safety Car deployed by Carlos Sainz’s crash on lap 39 when he was running P13 chasing Sergio Perez.

From there, Verstappen linearly opened up a gap in clear air. Without the spray of any cars in front and gaining confidence as the track dried out again as the laps went by, the Dutch driver set the fastest lap of the race on lap 67 with a 1:20.472 to score 26 points and achieve what seemed impossible just three hours earlier when his bad luck in qualifying and his five-place grid penalty put him P17.

Verstappen’s masterclass in the rain was the final blow to the World Championship. With a 62-point lead over Lando Norris and only 86 points at maximum stake, the Red Bull driver could mathematically clinch his fourth World Championship at the next race in Las Vegas.

The race in Brazil was a reflection of how the 2024 season has evolved ever since the Miami GP. Whatever happens, even in the worst situations, Verstappen has something more, something special that makes him undoubtedly the best driver on the grid.

His great performance attracted luck. The famous champion’s luck. The luck of the future four-time champion.

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