Brazilian Grand Prix: Max Verstappen dominates but Alonso v Perez steals the show

Max Verstappen took victory at the Brazilian Grand Prix on Sunday, with Lando Norris behind and Fernando Alonso completing the podium in dramatic fashion.

Alonso and Sergio Perez duelled throughout the final stint and were separated by only 0.053s come the chequered flag, with the Red Bull driver having been all over the Aston Martin for much of the closing stages.

It brightened up the entertainment value of what had been a regulation win for Verstappen, while Norris clocked up a 13th career podium – matching the total of Nick Heidfield for the most podiums in Formula 1 without a victory.

Pre-race drama followed by start chaos at Interlagos

There was drama before the race even got underway, as Charles Leclerc sent his Ferrari spinning into the wall at Ferradura on the formation lap – saying he “lost the hydraulics” on his car and questioning “why am I so unlucky?” over team radio.

A puff of smoke came out of the back of his SF-23 before he went into the wall, but this left Verstappen on his own on the front row after Leclerc could pull himself onto the escape road.

Aston Martin had locked out the second row, but the start saw both Fernando Alonso and Lance Stroll overtaken by Lewis Hamilton and Lando Norris as the pair swept around either side of them heading into the Senna S.

Behind them, a big impact saw the Safety Car come out almost immediately as Alex Albon caught the front tyre of Nico Hulkenberg as he tried to move around the outside of him, which in turn speared the Williams driver into the second Haas of Kevin Magnussen and took both drivers out of the race at the first corner.

The sheer amount of debris on track saw the race red-flagged, and Oscar Piastri will have been grateful for that after he was deemed not safe to continue after Magnussen slid into the back of him while he helplessly skidded off track, with Daniel Ricciardo also suffering damage in the first-lap melee as a bouncing loose tyre struck and broke his rear wing.

Both Australians had their cars frantically worked on in the interlude while the marshals worked to fix the barriers and debris, with the updated top five at the restart set to be Verstappen leading Norris, Hamilton, Alonso and Stroll.

A half-hour delay later, a second formation lap and standing start would follow, with Verstappen and Norris lining up on the front row of the grid, while Ricciardo and Piastri were both able to restart from the back of the field, but a lap down due to them pulling into their respective garages on the first lap.

It was an even start among the front-runners apart from Stroll losing a couple of places, but Alonso had a strong enough exit out of the Curva do Sol to put pressure on Hamilton, sending his Aston Martin down the inside at Descida do Lago and putting himself up into the top three.

Norris stuck within range of Verstappen in the early exchanges and even launched an attack for the lead, but the Red Bull driver fended him off and quickly scampered into a lead that would keep the McLaren at arm’s length.

George Russell had been looking to ‘work together’ with team-mate Hamilton early on, but Sergio Perez behind was looking racy and mounted an attack on him at the Senna S, moving past for fifth place and holding off Russell’s attack into the next braking zone to hold onto the place.

Perez soon closed up to the back of the sister Mercedes of Hamilton and moved up into fourth with another daring move into the Senna S, eight seconds behind Alonso as he looked to make his way into the podium positions himself.

This prompted Hamilton’s first stop for medium tyres in what was widely expected to be at least a two-stop race, with strategy expected to play a significant part in proceedings at Interlagos.

Perez pitted two laps later than Hamilton, but despite a 2.2-second stop, he re-emerged just behind the Mercedes after Hamilton made the most of the undercut effect at the first round of pit stops, leaving Perez with another overtake to make.

The Mexican questioned why Red Bull followed Mercedes’ strategy instead of doing their own race, but engineer Hugh Bird insisted “you’ve got the pace”, and Perez was able to get by Hamilton again two laps later after getting into his slipstream and overtaking into Descida do Lago.

After his stop, Stroll was also showing strong pace and overtook both Hamilton and Russell to put himself into the top five, while the front-runners extended their stints to lap 28 of 71 before switching tyres.

PlanetF1.com recommends

F1 schedule: When is the next F1 race and where is it being held?

F1 2023: Head-to-head qualifying and race stats between team-mates

Russell closed up to the back of Hamilton, making the point of not asking for team orders to be let past, believing his pace advantage to be “obvious”, but all the while he didn’t get by, Carlos Sainz made up the ground from behind and passed Russell for seventh and set about chasing Hamilton in what was becoming a day that was seeing Mercedes slide back.

The advantage within the Ferrari was clear over the Mercedes in a straight line, with Sainz flying past Hamilton several laps later and into the top six.

Elsewhere, mechanical issues forced both Alfa Romeo drivers out of the race in an unfortunate turn of events for Valtteri Bottas in particular, who was in contention for some vital points for the Hinwil-based team.

The second round of stops saw Perez come in before Alonso in an attempt to undercut the Aston Martin, though the two-time World Champion had plenty in hand to keep hold of a net third place.

A switch back to soft tyres was the aim for Mercedes to rekindle their hopes of good points, but Hamilton was soon passed by Pierre Gasly after his second stop – with the Briton not happy with his car’s straight-line speed, stating: “I’m in his DRS [zone], but I’m still not catching him.”

Further forwards, Alonso had to defend from an advancing Perez as the Red Bull driver got to within range of the Aston Martin for the final podium place.

Back at Mercedes, however, Russell came in to retire to cap a difficult day as the team reported worsening power unit temperatures and a risk of a failure on his engine.

On track, while Perez seemingly had much more pace than Alonso, the Spaniard was deploying his Energy Recovery System battery to great effect in the right places on track. Perez was continually in Alonso’s DRS zone, but the Aston Martin driver was keeping the Red Bull at bay with aplomb throughout the final stint.

Having had to be patient for laps at a time, Perez kept enough charge for a much better run at Alonso following Junção, lunging down the inside at the Senna S on the penultimate lap.

While that should have been the end of it, Alonso kept the pressure on and had Perez within range heading onto the final lap – holding him within DRS range onto the back straight and moving past into Descida do Lago.

The long run to the start/finish line gave Perez the chance to overtake come the chequered flag, and only half a tenth separated the pair when they crossed the line as Alonso clung onto the podium.

Brazilian Grand Prix 2023: Race classification

1 Max VERSTAPPEN Red Bull 1:26:07.136 71 laps
2 Lando NORRIS McLaren +8.277
3 Fernando ALONSO Aston Martin +34.155
4 Sergio PEREZ Red Bull Racing +34.208
5 Lance STROLL Aston Martin +40.845
6 Carlos SAINZ Ferrari +50.188
7 Pierre GASLY Alpine +56.093
8 Lewis HAMILTON Mercedes +62.859
9 Yuki TSUNODA AlphaTauri +69.880
10 Esteban OCON Alpine +1 lap
11 Logan SARGEANT Williams +1 lap
12 Nico HULKENBERG Haas +1 lap
13 Daniel RICCIARDO AlphaTauri +1 lap
14 Oscar PIASTRI McLaren +2 laps

Did not finish
George RUSSELL Mercedes
Valtteri BOTTAS Alfa Romeo
ZHOU Guanyu Alfa Romeo
Charles LECLERC Ferrari
Kevin MAGNUSSEN Haas
Alexander ALBON Williams

Read next: Ferrari disaster as Charles Leclerc crashes out on Brazilian GP formation lap