Formula 1 has a new world champion as the season heads to Sao Paulo and Brazil for round 20. Kimi Antonelli became the youngest world champion in F1 history in Mexico last weekend as a podium helped him seal the title with four races to spare. After Antonelli secured the drivers’ title last weekend, Mercedes could make it back-to-back weekends to remember as they can wrap up the constructors’ title this weekend if they outscore Ferrari by at least three points to end McLaren’s two-year run as constructors’ champions.
Mercedes have not won the Constructors’ Championship since 2021. Last year at Interlagos, Lando Norris took pole position and converted that into a race win en-route to winning the world championship. McLaren have brought a number of upgrades to their car for this weekend, including new front and rear wings.
Norris was fastest in first practice yesterday before then coming second in practice two. “I think FP1 we seemed quite easily on the pace,” Norris said following second practice. “FP2 we struggled a little bit more to match the Mercedes but it has been a pretty good start to the weekend and we have continued the trend we had in Mexico.
All in all, a positive day. Today [yesterday] was also a day where we kind of work through the upgrades and see if they work as they should, and they do. We have seemed to gain performance.
Nothing has changed from a driving point of view. Still tricky. But it is maybe brought a little bit of lap time, which is what we want.” Having been second in first practice, the new world champion Antonelli then was quickest in practice two.
“Definitely not thinking about the championship right now,” Antonelli said. “I am enjoying it. I think it was an enjoyable day.
Not easy out there. Conditions are tricky but also the grip is quite low. Overall, the degradation seems to be high in the race [runs], so it is interesting.
Not easy to find the right car balance, but I think we did a good step between FP1 and FP2 and we just need to work on tomorrow [today].” To sum up his year, Antonelli’s teammate George Russell will take a five-place grid penalty for a fresh engine this weekend as a result of his retirement at the Bahrain Grand Prix in Malaysia. Russell is not the only driver who will have a grid penalty for tomorrow’s race.
Max Verstappen, who was fastest in final practice earlier, will start at the back of the grid for a complete power-unit change. The Ferrari duo of Charles Leclerc and Lewis Hamilton have ten-place penalties for exceeding their internal combustion engine allocation. Based on the three practice sessions, it would appear that Antonelli and Norris are fighting it out for true pole for tomorrow, although the likes of Oscar Piastri may have something to say about that.
There are just three rounds remaining after this weekend, with races to come in Las Vegas, Qatar and Abu Dhabi. However, there still remains doubt over the races in the Middle East due to the ongoing war. Qualifying from Sao Paulo begins at 6pm GMT.
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