After the largely uneventful (apart from the Ferrari fireworks at the start) Mexico City Grand Prix last week the F1 teams made the trek further south to Brazil for the Sao Paulo Grand Prix, taking place on the hallowed tarmac of Ayrton Senna’s home track in the Interlagos area of the city. Due to some further movement in the driver market the local crowd would be able to cheer on two Brazilian drivers as Rafael Camara took the second Haas seat after Ryo Hirakawa’s creditable effort last weekend.

The undulating nature of the Autodromo Jose Carlos Pace almost always makes for a stirring event as the track layout lends itself to close racing which is often spiced up further due to the “interesting” local climate and, ahead of the weekend, the weather forecasts suggested we would indeed be in for a bit of rain on the Saturday and Sunday afternoons.

In Friday practice the first session was another opportunity for some of the junior drivers to get an outing in an F1 car and we saw a total of six cars being driven by unfamiliar names, with Italy’s Gabriele Mini taking the spoils as the fastest of the new recruits in FP1.

FP2 remained dry and looked set to show the order at the front as being likely between McLaren, Red Bull and Mercedes, with the Ferraris lacking that last bit of pace on what is a power circuit with it being at a lower altitude than Mexico City.

On Saturday morning the teams got the chance to do a final bit of dry weather running before the rain started. They tried to get qualifying underway but the heavens really opened as the session started, resulting in scenes akin to mid-way through the 1993 race where it was quite hard to even see the cars through the rain. This of course brought out the red flags and the session was delayed for over an hour before it restarted. As often happens when the weather gets wet we got to see the skill of some of the drivers show through as the rain removes a lot of the advantages of the faster cars and so, between that and a myriad of penalties being served by the majority of the grid, we had a somewhat jumbled-up order for the starting grid, with Norris taking pole ahead of Antonelli, Lawson and Hulkenberg. The wily old fox Alonso was up in the top ten as well as other unfamiliar faces including Oliver Bearman, with Hamilton and Verstappen right at the back due to penalties following power unit changes.

Race day looked a touch better weather-wise, but the track was still wet at the start. Antonelli got the jump on Norris off the line and the Brit was demoted further when Lawson nabbed second at the first downhill chicane. Further back, Hamilton had a stellar start but ended up running off-track to get around Bearman at turn 5 which would cost him a few laps later as he had to give the place back to avoid a penalty.

Antonelli looked confident at the front at first, but once Norris got his tyres up to temperature he soon picked off Lawson and set off in pursuit of the Mercedes. The track was beginning to dry out but due to some of the resurfacing work that had taken place a dry line did not appear as soon as one would normally expect so we saw a lot of the drivers, particularly the Ferraris, struggling with overheating the intermediate tyres. To give him his credit it was Lewis Hamilton who moved over to slicks first (after several laps of suggesting the switch to his team) and he was able to make up a heap of time as a result, bringing him back into the top ten.

As the leaders started to come in it became clear that not everyone was super-comfortable on the greasy surface, particularly the Mercedes. First, Russell has an embarrassing spin in the pit exit which cost him at least 25 seconds and then Antonelli spun at turn 1 while under pressure from Norris which put the Briton into a net lead which he was never to lose for the rest of the race. Further back, Hadjar was ahead of Verstappen and going well until the inevitable call came to let Max past, the two of them benefitting from Antonelli’s mid-race lack of pace to move into second and third.

We were fortunately seeing a lot more overtaking than had perhaps been anticipated, I suspect mostly due to the damp surface in the last sector of the lap punishing those who got wheelspin out of the Juncao corner before the long drag uphill to the finish line, so we didn’t see as much of the bad side of this year’s regs like we did at the last event where cars that were faster were completely unable to pass due to being effectively speed-limited on the straight, so there was plenty of the customary action into the Senna S throughout the race.

With the threat of rain escalating in the latter part of the race some of the teams decided to try and run to the end on one set of soft tyres but it soon became clear that this would not be possible and the next round of pit stops left Norris in a comfortable lead ahead of Verstappen and Hadjar, while Antonelli and Russell tried their best to regain ground further behind, the Italian setting the fastest lap shortly before the heavens opened and the field was forced to switch over to intermediate tyres for the last 10 laps or so.

At the checquered flag it was Norris who emerged victorious, a long way ahead of Verstappen and Hadjar, followed up by Russell, Antonelli, Piastri, Leclerc, Lawson, Hamilton and Hulkenberg.

Verstappen won the popular vote for driver of the day, but for me (yes… I know, I am somewhat partisan) I was very impressed with Norris’s measured and controlled performance. He made no significant mistakes and finished almost a whole minute in front of his team mate whose driving style clearly doesn’t seem to adapt as easily to the new generation of cars. It was a performance worthy of an outgoing champion and I think coming away with three wins so far this season in what has often not even been in the top 3 fastest cars does show that he has been a deserving champion. The Red Bull is clearly once again a very fast car and Verstappen will surely fancy his chances next time out in Las Vegas which should play to the strengths of their chassis and power unit.

Ferrari were pretty lacklustre all weekend despite showing moments of pace during the race, and I would expect that next time out they will struggle with the weaknesses of their power unit on the long straights, but they should come back stronger in Qatar (assuming it goes ahead as planned).

I still stand by my observations earlier in the year that the new regulations have been a success in parts but the spectacle of the sport is being hamstrung by the situation with the power units which are just not in keeping with the spirit of the sport – the engines should not be losing revs at the end of a long straight as it (a) looks/sounds ridiculous and (b) results in much less overtakes on the brakes and it remains clear that this aspect of it needs a lot of improvement ahead of next year, but at least it sounds like this era will be relatively shortlived if we do get a switch to a lightly-augmented V8 in a few years’ time. Of course, being the dinosaur that I am, I’d like to see a V10 but that would clearly be a step too far. These aero regs though, with a naturally aspirated engine that could rev out the whole way along the straights would be a very tantalising prospect.

We have a two-week break ahead of the event in Las Vegas which kicks off the season’s final triple-header. I find it hard to see past Verstappen as the favourite but think we’ll see strong qualifying efforts from the Alpines similar to Monza before the race brings the pack a bit closer together. The regulations certainly have their faults but although the standings say it has been Mercedes’ year they have definitely at least not had it all their own way!