RacingNews365 takes a look back in time at the 2021 São Paulo Grand Prix – a race slap bang in the middle of one of F1’s fiercest title fights.
The last official Brazilian Grand Prix was held in 2019, with the race returning in 2021 after a COVID-hiatus under a new name.
The Sao Paulo Grand Prix would continue to be run at Interlagos, putting the Brazilian moniker into abeyance as the Autodromo Jose Carlos Pace served up another thriller between title rivals Lewis Hamilton and Max Verstappen.
Brazil is famous for some of the most iconic races in F1, and between 2005-2009, it was the place where F1 titles were decided, with Fernando Alonso, Kimi Raikkonen, Hamilton and Jenson Button all claiming success, while Sebastian Vettel added his third crown in 2012.
Come 2021, Hamilton and the driver hoping to steal his ‘man to beat’ tag were engaged in what is perhaps the greatest championship battle in grand prix racing history – and probably the most controversial as well.
Ahead of this weekend’s Sao Paulo GP, RacingNews365 takes a look back at the 2021 race and the drama of the weekend as the title fight reached boiling point.
Hamilton’s disqualification
In what was turning into F1’s closest title fight since 2010, Verstappen came into the weekend leading Hamilton by 19 points with four rounds remaining, with Mercedes just a single point ahead of Red Bull in the constructors’.
It would also be the third and final sprint event of the season, with the new format being trailed that year with events at the British, Italian, and Sao Paulo GPs.
In qualifying – which was used to set the order for the sprint race, the results of which then set the grand prix grid – Hamilton was in a class of one, finishing nearly 0.5s up on the field – but was booted out for a technical infringement.
During the routine parc ferme checks post-session, the stewards found his DRS slot gap exceeded the maximum permitted opening of 85mm – and chucked him out for a slam dunk offence.
However, in a twist, footage captured in parc ferme showed Verstappen touching the rear-wing of Hamilton before it was inspected, near the DRS slot. The team tried to argue that it was the outside interference of Verstappen in touching another car – something expressively banned in the regulations – that had caused the infringement.
Ultimately, Verstappen was fined €50,000 for touching the rear-wing as the DSQ stood for Hamilton, handing the Dutchman a giant advantage in the title race as he lined up on sprint pole with Hamilton 20th – AKA last.
In the 25-lap race, he scythed through the field in the W12, rising to fifth-place but still scoring no points as only the top three did so, with Verstappen bagging two as Valtteri Bottas won.
But there was to be a further twist still.
Hamilton would not be starting fifth – but back down in 10th as Mercedes had fitted a fresh internal combustion engine, exceeding his allocation.
Come race day, he would quickly move through the field once again, coming up behind his title rival just after half-distance.
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Verstappen goes aggressive – and too far
On lap 48 of 71, Hamilton got the DRS on leader Verstappen out of the Senna S and on the run to Turn 4 – attempting to sweep around the outside and was completely ahead in the braking zone.
Only Verstappen didn’t see it like that and released the brakes and ran both cars into the run-off area – or to put it another way, forced another driver off the track.
After a brief stewards inquiry, no further action was taken – although by today’s standards, Verstappen would have received at least a five-second time penalty. His out-going chief technical officer at Red Bull Adrian Newey even admitted that he “went too far” with the move.
On lap 59, into the Turn 1 braking zone, Hamilton threw Verstappen a dummy by feigning a move up the inside on the brakes.
Verstappen covered it, which crucially put him out of position through the Senna Esses, and giving Hamilton the cleaner run down to Turn 4. He would sweep past to record the 101st victory of his career, some 10.496s clear of the Red Bull.
It meant Hamilton trimmed Verstappen’s points lead to 14, and that if the Mercedes driver won both inaugural races in Qatar and Saudi Arabia with Verstappen second both times with a fastest lap apiece, they’d go to the finale in Abu Dhabi level on points.
After a year of high-speed Silverstone collisions, Verstappen parking the Red Bull on top of the Mercedes at Monza, and the Sao Paulo shenanigans, what else could possibly go wrong as the 2021 season headed for its climax in the middle-east?
