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A flash, and a dream surely died on a wet track as slippery as a chancellor’s promise.
It was lap 43, Max Verstappen was lying second with Alpine’s Esteban Ocon in front of him and Lando Norris fifth and hanging on to his slithering world championship hopes as if it were a bar of soap. The safety car withdrew.
Two things occurred almost exactly simultaneously. Verstappen, as sure as a laser, steered down the inside at Turn One for the lead. And just behind him, Norris lost control and ran off. He dropped two places.
It must now be averred without the slightest whiff of contradiction, no matter what the standings state at the end of the season, that Max Emilion Verstappen, aged 26, is the greatest motor racing driver on the planet today.
He came from 17th on the grid to triumph through the fantails of water on the undulating Interlagos track, where perdition lay on every precarious inch of the re-laid yet bumpy asphalt.
Max Verstappen produced a brilliant performance in the Brazilian rain to win in Sao Paulo
Spray pictured flying off the car of Verstappen during Sunday’s wet Brazilian Grand Prix
Alpine had a superb day in the rain as Esteban Ocon and Pierre Gasly came second and third
But it was not a good day for Lando Norris as his hopes of catching Verstappen took a big hit
McLaren driver Norris had started on pole but he eventually crossed the line in sixth place
For Norris, his world championship ambitions, which he has never convincingly believed in or confidently executed in its pursuit, look all but over. You cannot start on pole and lose ground to a automaton 16 places back.
That hard reality is spelt out in the maths that now stare at Norris in the face like a hall of mirrors. He is 62 points off Verstappen. Only 86 remain on the gambling table heading to Las Vegas, where, if Verstappen finishes ahead of the Briton, is guaranteed his fourth successive world title.
It will be the best title of his quartet. Achieved against a backdrop of scandal at Red Bull. In a car that has fallen away. In the midst of a McLaren revival.
After taking the lead, Verstappen purred ahead as if the sunroof was down on a country lane on a Sunday afternoon in the Cotswolds. His margin of victory over second-placed Ocon was 19.4 as this wackiest or races ended two-and-half hours after it started. Pierre Gasly, in the other Alpine, took third place.
As for Norris, who ran off not once but twice, he finished sixth, having been gifted a place by his team-mate Oscar Piastri, who was ordered to yield on lap 46. They may not care to ask him again to play Jeeves to Norris’s Wooster.
Not since Kimi Raikkonen, in Suzuka, Japan in 2005, has anyone driven from as far back, also 17th, to take the victory Verstappen reeled off here. Only twice before has a driver come from further back to triumph: Rubens Barrichello in Hockenheim, Germany in 2000 from 18th, and John Watson in Long Beach, California, in 1983 from 22nd.
Verstappen’s drive into the pages of history substantiates reveals him as a true champion. Norris isn’t. He maybe one day; he may never be.
At the end Verstappen celebrated with his mechanic colleagues and girlfriend Kelly Piquet, hugging, hollering, fist-pumping. It was a relief, just as even his elastic nerves were growing a touch taut with Norris’s incremental incursions on his lead. The Dutchman’s previous win was way back in Spain in June, 10 races of worrying ago.
Williams driver Franco Colapinto crashed out before the red flag was raised in Sao Paulo
Colapinto’s car was lifted and then removed from the side of the race track by a large truck
Ferrari driver Carlos Sainz also crashed out of Sunday’s race amid wet and wild conditions
The safety car was called into action multiple times during Sunday’s Brazilian Grand Prix
Dutchman Verstappen (right) pictured overtaking Ocon en route to victory in Brazil on Sunday
The first question of the afternoon had been whether Norris could hold off second-starting George Russell off the line? History was against him. Six out of seven times starting on pole, he surrendered the lead on the first lap. Make that seven out of eight. Norris struggled for traction and the Mercedes came through on the inside.
All eyes turned to the back of the grid and what that warrior Verstappen could do from 17th. He had got unlucky in qualifying when a delayed red flag following Stroll’s spin. He could not better his time despite being on a lap that suggested he might and that meant 12th fastest. An engine change plunged him five places further back.
But he was surefooted from the off, taking three cars on the outside of Turn 3 the off and into 10th place by the end of the first lap, or at least the first corner of the second as he passed Lewis Hamilton.
Then he passed Gasly and Aston’s Fernando Alonso over the next few laps. He was gobbling them up but then he came up against Piastri in the other McLaren. He would offer resistance on behalf of his team-mate, no?
Not for long. His defence was lame, and Verstappen swept through as if the Australian was pulling over for the Dutchman’s outriders. He was through like a cavalcade.
Liam Lawson, in the RB belonging to Red Bull’s junior team, was never going to show Verstappen the long route round. The world champion was up into sixth.
At the front, meanwhile, Norris was inside or just outside one second’s range of Russell. There was no DRS to help him in the rain.
Verstappen pictured celebrating his very impressive victory at Autodromo Jose Carlos Pace
Winner Verstappen was congratulated by his Brazilian girlfriend Kelly Piquet in Sao Paulo
Verstappen was visibly delighted as he celebrated on top of the podium after his fine win
Verstappen pictured celebrating next to Alpine’s French ace Ocon, who finished second
Norris was feeling the task of passing him beyond his car’s ken. ‘I’m struggling to overtake – so slow on the straights,’ he said.
Charles Leclerc was now in front of Verstappen. The Ferrari man defended gamely at the start of lap 22. ‘He’s squeezing me on to the white lines,’ complained Verstappen in a remark to be filed under ‘I’ for irony.
Anyway, Leclerc peeled into the pits and came back into traffic.
Now Norris got edgy. He asked whether he should pit to overtake. The question was jumpy, and as it transpired an error. Verstappen stayed out, as did Ocon. It paid dividends when combined with genius.
Two safety cars and one 25-minute red-flag suspension jangled the senses, but through it all came Verstappen like a man from another place.
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