2021 Formula One Sao Paulo Grand Prix

Formula 1 Grand Prix of Brazil.jpeg

Who will lead the constructor's championship after Brazil?

  • Mercedes

    Votes: 63 33.7%

  • Red Bull

    Votes: 124 66.3%
  • Total voters
    187
  • Poll closed .
F1 takes to the Autódromo José Carlos Pace circuit this weekend in Brazil.

Formula One returns to Brazil this weekend after missing the 2020 race. The event will see the return of the sprint qualifying format.

Driver’s championship leader Max Verstappen holds a 19 point lead over Lewis Hamilton at a track both drivers tend to perform well on. Their respective teams, Red Bull and Mercedes, are separated by just one point with Mercedes’ slight edge.

Just four races remain in the 2021 season, with the field travelling to Qatar, Saudi Arabia and Abu Dhabi to close out the year. While Verstappen’s 19-point advantage seems safe at this point, constructor’s standings are more hotly contested. Mercedes’s one point lead could easily swing to Red Bull’s advantage before the end of the year, and the 13.5-point lead Ferrari now holds over McLaren looks to be a tight battle for the remainder of the season.

Behind the four top teams, Alpine and Alphatauri are locked at 106 points each. Pierre Gasly’s impressive 86 points this season have offset Yuki Tsunoda’s 20 at Alphatauri, with Alpine’s points being more balanced at 60 and 46 for Fernando Alonso and Esteban Ocon, respectively.

There remains much to be decided this season in terms of the final driver and constructor rankings. Let us know your thoughts on who might finish ahead of where they are currently ranked, and who will take the win in Sao Paulo this weekend.

Image credit: Mercedes AMG Petronas Formula Team
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About author
Mike Smith
Mike Smith
I have been obsessed with sim racing and racing games since the 1980's. My first taste of live auto racing was in 1988, and I couldn't get enough ever since. Lead writer for RaceDepartment, and owner of SimRacing604 and its YouTube channel. Favourite sims include Assetto Corsa Competizione, Assetto Corsa, rFactor 2, Automobilista 2, DiRT Rally 2 - On Twitter as @simracing604

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Comments

Paul Glover
muzikant said:
the discussion gets a bit pathetic and endlessly fed by the british F1 press...they all seem to be targeting Max as usual. Where have we seen that before? Alonso Schumacher

on to the next race
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I'm told the press in the Netherlands are the opposite by someone who is Dutch, why did you forget to mention that? because you have an agenda..... enough already.
 
Appie Kuipers
Paul Glover said:
I'm told the press in the Netherlands are the opposite by someone who is Dutch, why did you forget to mention that? because you have an agenda..... enough already.
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All because the RB is 100% legal, the Merc can’t be, there’s something that Stinks.
How can that car within a week be so much faster:confused:
 
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muzikant
Paul Glover said:
I'm told the press in the Netherlands are the opposite by someone who is Dutch, why did you forget to mention that? because you have an agenda..... enough already.
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What I say. . Not the first time Every challenge year by year out of Uk Schumacher.. Alonso all ex drivers from Uk sky sport. Sunday there was nothing only hard racing. And Appis right where the 50 hp came from? Ut was to easy to overtake the whole field in minutes
 
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LeSunTzu
Some people have troubles puting things into perspective. Since the Russian GP the Mercedes has been noticeably quicker and they got 4 poles in the last 5 races. Mexico is a track where RedBull/Honda overperform and they didn't even get a pole there. Horner has been making comments about the Mercedes engine, rear suspension, rear wing and whatnot for a while. The Interlagos performance does not come out of the blue.

And as for Hamilton's driving, people are in awe for a few races where Senna was flying; they should have no problem acknowledging that it was one of those days of grace for Hamilton. In recent years we have seen guys like Leclerc or Vettel or Pérez produce extraordinary race day performances as well.
 
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muzikant
LeSunTzu said:
Some people have troubles puting things into perspective. Since the Russian GP the Mercedes has been noticeably quicker and they got 4 poles in the last 5 races. Mexico is a track where RedBull/Honda overperform and they didn't even get a pole there. Horner has been making comments about the Mercedes engine, rear suspension, rear wing and whatnot for a while. The Interlagos performance does not come out of the blue.

And as for Hamilton's driving, people are in awe for a few races where Senna was flying; they should have no problem acknowledging that it was one of those days of grace for Hamilton. In recent years we have seen guys like Leclerc or Vettel or Pérez produce extraordinary race day performances as well.
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Yess but is was no 50 hp more like Interlagos
 
Damage Inc
Amereto1 said:
It's funny how Lewis raced and beat a lot of these drivers and many more that are no longer in F1 while rising through the ranks in karting and the junior formulas. Same cars, same machinery and he still won countless championships, but now all of sudden we get to F1 and it's all about there car?
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Gotta say this, ALL of the top drivers in F1 win almost everything in their junior years...it's how they get noticed by the big boys. When they get to F1 the ones who get the fastest cars get the wins and championships. Max is suddenly doing so much better this year agreed? So has he suddenly found a drug or a switch in his head toi go faster....or is it because the Red Bull is a faster car this year (and the Merc a little slower). F1 isn't about the drivers, it's about the tech and those who can design the tech the best. There's loads of top quality drivers all over the various racing series, but a only a handful of top designers capable of creating the vehicle that wins.
 
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Damage Inc
muzikant said:
Nice but is it's nothing comparable to Silverstone
Silverstone that was dismissed as normal by the Merc fans, then this is nothing
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Also Copse has no real "braking zone" unlike T4 at Interlagos.....how can you outbrake someone when you don't touch the brakes?
 
Amereto1
Damage Inc said:
Gotta say this, ALL of the top drivers in F1 win almost everything in their junior years...it's how they get noticed by the big boys. When they get to F1 the ones who get the fastest cars get the wins and championships. Max is suddenly doing so much better this year agreed? So has he suddenly found a drug or a switch in his head toi go faster....or is it because the Red Bull is a faster car this year (and the Merc a little slower). F1 isn't about the drivers, it's about the tech and those who can design the tech the best. There's loads of top quality drivers all over the various racing series, but a only a handful of top designers capable of creating the vehicle that wins.
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I can agree to some of this, on the other side of the coin I would also say as the season has gone on Checco has got a lot quicker and is considerably closer to Max than the last few team mates, that is all about his driver skills and talent and not him all of a sudden being given a quicker car, something Albon and Gasly couldn't do. So even though Checco had a very quick car from the beginning of the season a driver still needs the talent to extract the performance and a driver still needs the talent to beat his team mates in the case of Lewis.

"Those who can design the tech the best".. This has always been the heartbeat of this sport going back to the 50's, it's the fans who get tribalism about drivers, the engineering aspect of F1 cars is what got me into F1 and what interests me the most, I would gladly have the career of Newey, Chapman, Barnard or Rudolf Uhlenhaut (designed gull wing doors, Le Mans cars and Fangio's car which won 9 out of 12 races in a season in the 50's, I wonder if people were moaning in 1954 how the sport is boring and Fangio is only champion because of his car..lol) over any F1 champion. That's why my disappointment is with the other 9 teams, 8 this season rather than Mercedes who I admire for their engineering excellence as I have done with Ferrari, Red bull, Williams, Brawn in the past.
 
Richard Wilks
Amereto1 said:
I can agree to some of this, on the other side of the coin I would also say as the season has gone on Checco has got a lot quicker and is considerably closer to Max than the last few team mates, that is all about his driver skills and talent and not him all of a sudden being given a quicker car, something Albon and Gasly couldn't do. So even though Checco had a very quick car from the beginning of the season a driver still needs the talent to extract the performance and a driver still needs the talent to beat his team mates in the case of Lewis.

"Those who can design the tech the best".. This has always been the heartbeat of this sport going back to the 50's, it's the fans who get tribalism about drivers, the engineering aspect of F1 cars is what got me into F1 and what interests me the most, I would gladly have the career of Newey, Chapman, Barnard or Rudolf Uhlenhaut (designed gull wing doors, Le Mans cars and Fangio's car which won 9 out of 12 races in a season in the 50's, I wonder if people were moaning in 1954 how the sport is boring and Fangio is only champion because of his car..lol) over any F1 champion. That's why my disappointment is with the other 9 teams, 8 this season rather than Mercedes who I admire for their engineering excellence as I have done with Ferrari, Red bull, Williams, Brawn in the past.
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Regarding the second part of your post, maybe they did? Context is important. And since you seem to like the engineering aspect, a big gripe i have with this Mercedes domination and with the "its not the car" crowd regarding Hamilton, is that Mercedes did a better job yes, but they got a massive headstart, and their advantage was crystalized with the rules forbidding testing and the token system. Basically the headstart was never going to be recovered, because by partially freezing development, the rate at which someone could have caught mercedes was slowed down drastically, allowing them to always be one step ahead of the competition.

For comparison sake, imagine if in 1978, a rule came out that forbade testing, and any new component would have to go through a homologation schedule, and most of the chassis is freezed. We would have Andretti and the lotus 79 dominating F1 for years! Or the same in 1992, we would be talking about Mansell as a multiple world champion, or Prost could have the double of the titles, if Williams would go on 5 more years with the active car, and everybody else had their legs cut to catch up.

To cap it all, the token system was a complete failure, so much that we will now have real budget caps, and the likes of VW are saying the will never enter F1 unless they are given special concessions to catch up quicker...
 
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Paul Glover
muzikant said:
I love that there are never so many people here on the forum when Max wins. Only when he loses do the Mercedes fans come to slaughter him, nothing special, no accident, nothing at all. Too funny for words
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Sorry? Me? where have I slaughtered him?
 
Appie Kuipers
And they say he is like Senna:laugh::laugh: Senna was a real racer, Ham is the DRS doctor, for 7 years.
 
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