Lando Norris dominates São Paulo as Mercedes are Crowned Champions
In a weekend full of rainy chaos, it was Lando Norris who took his second consecutive Grand Prix win at the Autodromó José Carlos Pace circuit and Mercedes were crowned the constructors' champions of the 2026 season!
Coming into the weekend, a lot of events were shared over the internet, with one of them being that Esteban Ocon was not going to participate in any more races of the 2026 season. Replacing him for this weekend was Brazilian Formula 2 championship leader, Rafael Câmara making his Formula 1 debut in his home country. And some good news in the short break since Mexico, Charles Leclerc and his wife, Alexandra Leclerc shared that they gave birth to their baby girl, Bianca.
Friday
Brazil’s FP1 session saw 6 rookie drivers return for another session with 1 of them making their official Formula 1 debut this weekend. The rookie drivers were:
Leonardo Fornaroli in for Oscar Piastri
Dino Beganovic in for Charles Leclerc
Luke Browning in for Carlos Sainz
Freddie Slater in for Nico Hulkenberg
Gabriele Mini in for Pierre Gasly
Colton Herta in for Sergio Perez
Rafael Câmara in for Haas
Rafael Câmara was the rookie that made his Formula 1 debut as Haas had dropped Esteban Ocon after an internal team incident after FP2 in Mexico City. Starting the session off, there was a red flag brought out by Freddie Slater with 47 minutes left as he stopped at Turn 6. After the red flag, Colton Herta was noted for a red flag infringement for ignoring the red flag. This was not further investigated as he was slightly past the pit lane entry line when the red flag was called. Mercedes had also confirmed that George Russell was going to have a five place grid penalty for a new internal combustion engine.
In this week’s FP2 session, all of the drivers had returned to their cars to collect their data for the grand prix on Sunday. Nico Hulkenberg didn’t manage to go out for a lap in this session as Audi had found multiple problems within his car. Rafael Câmara was investigated after the session for impeding Charles Leclerc. Towards the end of the session, the clouds had started to come down as the visibility from above the track was lowering. Max Verstappen had gotten out of his car with five minutes left as he felt as if he had collected all the data he needed whilst his teammate, Isack Hadjar had gone back out on the medium tyres. The session ended with Kimi Antonelli leading the pack with a 1:10.763s shortly followed by Lando Norris and Max Verstappen both two tenths behind the new world champion
Saturday
Just before this FP3 session started, F1 announced that the São Paulo Grand Prix had signed a 5 year contract extension through to 2035. Nico Hulkenberg completed his first session of the weekend in FP3 as Freddie Slater had taken his car for the first practice session, and Audi were working on his car in the second. In the middle of the session, Lewis Hamilton reported that there was smoke in the cockpit so Ferrari called him in to look at the problem. He didn’t make it out for the rest of the session as Ferrari had to look at some of the engine components. Finishing the session ahead was Max Verstappen with a 1:11.622s followed by Antonelli and Norris. Perez was investigated after the session for an unsafe condition as he threw something out of his car on one of his out laps
Coming into qualifying, the first piece of rain came into the weekend as the drivers went out for Q1 on the intermediate and extreme wet tyres. However, two minutes and 23 seconds into the session, race control red flagged the session as the visibility was low and drivers on the full wet tyres were aquaplaning. The resumption time for qualifying was 16:26 local time. A yellow flag was quickly brought out as Rafael Câmara had hit the barrier on the straight between Turn 3 and 4. The rain is where we see the drivers’ real talent come through as Carlos Sainz, Nico Hulkenberg and Fernando Alonso had managed to put themselves in the top three at some point in Q1. A yellow flag was brought out at the end of Q1 as Ollie Bearman had run off the track. However topping the session was Lando Norris and being eliminated was Colapinto, Gasly, Stroll, Bottas, Perez and then hometown hero Gabriel Bortoleto. In the middle of Q2 Arvid Lindblad was told by his race engineer to stop in a safe place and he stopped at Turn 5 ending his qualifying session there. With five minutes left of Q2, drivers started coming into the pits and changing on to intermediates with Fernando Alonso being the first one to change. With one and a half minutes of the session left, Câmara had his lap time deleted for track limits. A red flag was brought out with 43 seconds as Camara had crashed into a wall. Being eliminated due to this red flag was Hamilton, Piastri, Câmara, Lindblad, Sainz and Verstappen. The start of Q3 was also delayed with that starting at 17:14 local time. Aston Martin also had their first Q3 appearance this season with Fernando Alonso getting through. The session had an early end with six minutes remaining as the drivers didn’t go out due to worsening conditions of the track. With added penalties, Russell moved down to P7, Leclerc moved to P14, Hamilton started at the back of the grid in P20 and Verstappen started in P21.
Sunday
The race was set to begin at 14:00 local time, however, only 21 cars were on the grid as Valtteri Bottas didn’t start the race. The lights went out with all drivers on the intermediate tyres and Kimi Antonelli grabbed the lead from Norris before Turn 1. Norris had a bad start and dropped down to P3 with Liam Lawson taking P2. Lewis Hamilton and Max Verstappen had an impressive start as they both made it up to P9 and P10 by Lap 2. Lando Norris had regained P2 but at this point, Kimi Antonelli had already gained a five second advantage over the rest of the pack. Lewis Hamilton was under investigation on Lap 8 for leaving the track and gaining an advantage when overtaking Ollie Bearman at the start of the race. He was then told to give the position back to avoid Lewis getting any penalties. Lewis had also lost some of his pace after letting Ollie past as he was then overtaken by Arvid Lindblad and then his teammate Leclerc and eventually Fernando Alonso, dropping him down into 14th position. The first pit stop of the race was Lewis Hamilton as he thought it was time for the slicks as he changed from the intermediates to the soft compound of tyres. Following him into the pits was Sainz, Camara, Perez and Albon, Perez. This also triggered the top runners to come into the pits but Kimi Antonelli and Max Verstappen didn’t come in until a couple of laps after on Lap 17. Coming out of the pits, George Russell had a spin on the pit exit which had dropped him down into P10. Antonelli had trouble with his tyres as he had spun at Turn 1 on Lap 20 which gave former world champion Lando Norris the lead of the race. Kimi had another run off the track on Lap 24 which allowed Verstappen through and into the podium places.
Lap 32 was when we saw the first retiree of the race come into the pits and that was Lance Stroll as his engineer told him to box because of a problem with his car. He didn’t manage to make it to the Aston Martin pit box as he had stopped as the pit lane entry giving him his 14 DNFs this season and the team’s 21st DNF. Red Bull had told their drivers to swap positions as Verstappen had more grip and speed than Hadjar, giving Verstappen P2. Lewis Hamilton came into the pits again on Lap 39 and he came out just as race leader Lando Norris was coming past Turn 1. Alex Albon was given a five second time penalty for rejoining the track unsafely whilst in a battle with Alonso and Gasly.
Lando Norris came into the pits to cover from Max Verstappen and this gave Hadjar the lead of the race but not for long as Red Bull had called him in the following lap. Another three way battle in the race was for P10 between Hulkenberg, Colapinto and Lindblad with Hulkenberg coming out ahead. However, he was later investigated for leaving the track and gaining an advantage going out of the Senna S’s. He was then given a 10 second time penalty. Lap 59 was when the next spec of rain appeared as the engineers started to tell their drivers that if it was to become heavier, they would need to pit again for the intermediates. Overtake mode was disabled on Lap 62 with Alonso being the first driver to pit for the inters again. Whilst in the pits, Antonelli nearly hit Colapinto whilst the Argentine was coming out of his pit box, and this was being investigated after the race. This resulted in a 5 second penalty being added on after the race. Hamilton stayed out for another lap and then nearly lost it at the last corner, hitting the wall and then coming into the pits. On the penultimate lap, Leclerc and Lawson tapped each other’s cars whilst fighting for P7 with Leclerc driving ahead of him for the points. This was investigated after the race and Leclerc was given a 5 second penalty for the minor collision. Along with this, Ollie Bearman also got a 5 second penalty but for an unsafe release in front of Charles Leclerc.
Crossing the line in P1, Lando Norris won the São Paulo Grand Prix earning his 50th podium in Formula 1 and his second consecutive win at this circuit. Another winner this weekend were Mercedes as they grabbed the 2026 constructor’s championship as they outscored Ferrari. This is also Toto Wolff’s ninth constructor’s championship as a team principal, equalling the record of Sir Frank WIlliams at WIlliams.
Article Written by Sophie W
