Great show! Russell and Mercedes celebrate a well-deserved victory in the Brazilian sprint

George Russell turned in one of the most spectacular performances of this year’s Formula One World Championship in the final sprint of the season. The 24-year-old Briton in the service of Mercedes won Saturday’s short race ahead of reigning world champion Max Verstappen and his teammate Lewis Hamilton. While Haas driver Kevin Magnussen shocked with a triumph in Friday’s qualifying, the potential of his car did not allow him to do better than eighth place at the finish.

With today’s final sprint of the season, the Interlagos track cemented its reputation as a circuit where F1 cars can overtake in abundance.

Not only that, but the length and general nature of the two straights is conducive to the fact that many times the actual manoeuvres take place on braking into the first and fourth corners respectively. As a result, racing at the Sao Paulo circuit offers a spectacular show year after year.

Yesterday’s qualifying sessions, which were affected by the changing conditions, were surprisingly dominated by Kevin Magnussen of the Haas team.

The native of Roskilde, Denmark, even managed to get off to a much better start in the third and final sprint of the season than Verstappen, whose second place had to be closely guarded from the onrushing Russell and Lando Norris.

Sparks were flying between the Alpine and Aston Martin drivers…

The pair of Alpine and Aston Martin drivers were the crowd’s attention during the first half of Saturday’s race.

Fernando Alonso and Esteban Ocon almost collided after the start on the run through turn four. Contact was eventually made just a few dozen seconds later on the home straight.

Alonso lost part of his front wing and had to go to his mechanics. The Formula One veteran took to the radio to complain about his French teammate with an ironic undertone.

Meanwhile, on lap three, there was a change of sprint leader. Verstappen took advantage of his Red Bull’s performance to take the lead comfortably from Magnussen, who then began to drop behind the drivers of the top three teams and eventually had to settle for eighth place at the finish.

Things got hot for Aston Martin during lap nine when Lance Stroll took Sebastian Vettel out onto the grass as he passed through the second DRS zone. Stroll was handed a 10-second penalty after this dangerous manoeuvre, which was too similar to the one on Alonso during the US VC.

Epic Verstappen vs. Russell duel

The highlight of the entire sprint was undoubtedly the duel between Verstappen and Russell. The fourth man in the overall standings didn’t let the two-time world champion breathe a sigh of relief after the red lights went out.

Exactly halfway through the race, Russell made his first attempt to pass Verstappen. Even with the help of DRS on both straights, however, he was unable to take over the top spot.

Finally, after several laps of struggling, the British youngster managed to overtake Verstappen. Russell then waved off his rival and began to drive away at a relatively fast pace towards victory.

The decision by Red Bull and Verstappen to put on medium compound tyres before the start of the sprint, as opposed to the vast majority, proved to be the wrong decision after the finish. Unless, of course, the move falls under the world champions’ plan.

Verstappen’s pace was dropping after his duel with Russell. Carlos Sainz in the Ferrari took advantage of that. But during Sainz’s manoeuvre on the Dutchman, contact was made.

Verstappen lost a twisted section of the front wing on the left side, which meant he lost downforce on the front of the car. Hamilton, in the Mercedes, was still able to get past Verstappen.

Russell finished in first place after 24 laps ahead of Sainz and Hamilton. Sainz’s five-place penalty for exceeding the legal limit on power unit use thus most likely means Mercedes will take the front row at the start of Sunday’s race for the first time since the Saudi Grand Prix last year.

Full sprint results can be found in the attached Twitter post below.

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