Race Results 2021 Brazilian F1 Grand Prix

Event: Brazilian Grand Prix
Track: Autodromo Interlagos

Max Verstappen driving the (33) Red Bull Racing RB16B Honda and Valtteri Bottas of Finland driving the (77) Mercedes AMG Petronas F1 Team Mercedes W12 lead the field into turn one at the start during the F1 Grand Prix of Brazil at Autodromo Jose Carlos Pace (Photo by Lars Baron/Getty Images)

Weather: dry 18.6°C
Tarmac: dry 39.8°C
Humidity: 46.2%
Wind: 0.2 m/s SW
Pressure: 784.8 bar

Lewis Hamilton scored his 101st race win today. The British driver won the Brazilian F1 GP for the 2nd time. It was his 6th race win of the 2021 season. The Mercedes driver started from P10 and moved up to P1 in lap 59. It was the 122nd race win for Mercedes.

2021 Brazilian F1 GP Race Report

The start of the race was clean. Max Verstappen passed Mercedes driver Valtteri Bottas the same way he passed him yesterday during the sprint race. His Red Bull teammate Sergio Perez could pass Sergio Perez at turn 4 when the Finnish driver out braked himself. All cars in the top 10 started on the medium tyre.

Lewis Hamilton who started from P10 also had a very strong few first laps and at the beginning of lap 5 Lewis Hamilton was already on P4 when Valtteri Bottas who was driving on P3, was told by his team to swap positions with his Mercedes teammate Hamilton.

A safety car period was used from lap 6 to 9 to clean up the track from debris left by a collision between AlphaTauri driver Yuki Tsunoda and Lance Stroll for P12. The restart with both Red Bulls, Mercedes' and Ferraris behind eachother was delayed until the last moment by Verstappen who could set the pace.

Ferrari driver Charles Leclerc was getting real close behind Bottas to try and pass the Finnish driver, but could not make it stick. The following lap Haas driver Mick Schumacher and  Alfa Romeo driver Kimi Raikkonen collided in turn 1. The German driver broke his front wing when he hit the rear left tyre of the Finnish driver. A virtual safety car was used to again clean up the track. The VSC ended in lap 14.

Not much happened at the restart Hamilton did came closer behind Perez to try and overtake Perez for P2. Tsunoda received 10 second penalty for causing a collision with Stroll. In lap 17 Hamilton was close enough behind Perez to use his DRS, but the Mercedes driver didn't came close enough.

The next lap Hamilton came very close and even overtook the Mexican driver at turn 1. The next straight towards turn 4 Perez got a DRS from Hamilton and took back P2 from the British driver. At the end of that lap Hamilton again passed Perez for P2 and flew by with almost 27 km/h higher top speed and made it stick.

Race leader Verstappen now was 3.8 sec. in front of his title rival Hamilton.in lap 20. The first regular pitstop was done by Aston Martin driver Lance Stroll to switch from medium to hard tyres. The stop was quite slow and took 4.3s. The Canadian driver returned to the track on P19. Hamilton and Verstappen both drove about the same pace and even already lapped Schumacher in lap 25.

Turn 3 of the first lap, Brazilian F1 GP (2021)

In lap 26 AlphaTauri driver was the second driver to do a pitstop. His stop took 2.9s. Hamilton tried to do an undercut on Verstappen at the end of that lap. His stop took 2.4s. Verstappen. The Dutchman came back on P3 but lost time to Hamilton who still was behind McLaren driver Daniel Ricciardo.on P5. The British driver did get a DRS to close the gap towards and drove fastest lap after fastest lap to close the gap on Verstappen to only 1.4s.

In lap 30 a short virtual safety car was used to clean the track again from debris because Stroll lost his left bargeboard. The Mercedes team was awake and ride away pulled in Bottas for his stop. Because of the VSC Bottas had a very "cheap" pitstop and overtook Perez for P3.

In lap 32 Verstappen now set the fastest lap time. Verstappen was able to be 0.3s faster than his rival in the tight second sector to pull out the gap, he needed to stay clear of the Mercedes that's much faster on the straights.

In lap 41 Verstappen went in for a new set of hard tyres. One lap later Bottas did the same and returned behind Leclerc. Verstappen came back behind Hamilton on P2. Perez pitted one lap later and returned to the track behind Leclerc, who was passed by Bottas now.

In lap 44 Hamilton also pitted to not lose too much time on Verstappen also got a new set of hards.Hamilton now was 1.8s behind Verstappen, Bottas was 5.1s behind Hamilton and Perez 3.1s behind Bottas.

Max Verstappen and Lewis Hamilton going side by side into turn 4 at Interlagos, Brazilian F1 GP (2021)

In lap 47 Hamilton got really close to the Red Bull of Verstappen and only was 0.4s behind. The next lap Hamilton gave it all he got and got along side the Dutchman on the straight towards turn 4. Verstappen who was on the inside braked very late and both drivers went wide in turn 4. The incident was noted by the stewards.

McLaren driver Daniel Ricciardo retired in lap 49 with a power unit problem, Stroll also retired his Aston Martin in lap 50.

IN lap 58 Hamilton again was looking to get passed the Red Bull at turn 4, but couldn't make the pass. One lap later Hamilton could get closer at turn 1 and got a DRS on the straight toward turn 4 to take the lead.

With 10 laps to go Hamilton was 2.2 sec. in front of Verstappen and Bottas also was getting closer to Verstappen, but was looking at a gap of 9s.

Perez went in at the end of lap 69 to get a new set of softs to steelaway the extra point Hamilton got for driving the fastest lap up till then.

Classification 2021 Brazilian GP

P	No	Driver	Team	Time	Laps	Grid	Pts
1	44	Lewis Hamilton	Mercedes	01:32:22.851	71	10	25
2	33	Max Verstappen	Red Bull	01:32:33.347	71	2	20
3	77	Valtteri Bottas	Mercedes	01:32:36.427	71	1	18
4	11	Sergio Pérez	Red Bull	01:33:02.791	71	4	13
5	16	Charles Leclerc	Ferrari	01:33:12.368	71	6	10
6	55	Carlos Sainz	Ferrari	01:33:14.671	71	3	9
7	10	Pierre Gasly	AlphaTauri	01:32:27.043	70	7	6
8	31	Esteban Ocon	Alpine	01:32:43.369	70	8	4
9	14	Fernando Alonso	Alpine	01:32:43.860	70	12	2
10	4	Lando Norris	McLaren	01:32:46.857	70	5	1
11	5	Sebastian Vettel	Aston Martin	01:32:48.145	70	9	0
12	7	Kimi Räikkönen	Alfa Romeo	01:32:53.939	70	18	0
13	63	George Russell	Williams	01:33:20.939	70	17	0
14	99	Antonio Giovinazzi	Alfa Romeo	01:33:23.413	70	13	0
15	22	Yuki Tsunoda	AlphaTauri	01:33:27.652	70	15	0
16	6	Nicholas Latifi	Williams	01:33:31.663	70	16	0
17	9	Nikita Mazepin	Haas	01:32:58.069	69	20	0
18	47	Mick Schumacher	Haas	01:33:35.425	69	19	0
DNF	3	Daniel Ricciardo	McLaren	Power unit	49	11	0
DNF	18	Lance Stroll	Aston Martin	Collision damage	47	14	0

Fastest lap: 1:11.010 min by Sergio Perez, Red Bull (no.11) in lap 71

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