McLaren’s Lando Norris recovered from a poor start to claim a dominant victory in a wet Sao Paulo Grand Prix that saw Mercedes seal the 2026 Formula 1 Constructors’ Championship.
Max Verstappen produced a signature stunning drive in the wet to come from 21st on the grid to finish second, with his team-mate Isack Hadjar completing a double-podium for Red Bull.
Newly crowned world champion Kimi Antonelli had looked on course for victory after taking the lead at the start but ultimately had to settle for fifth behind his team-mate George Russell, which was more than enough for Mercedes to establish an unassailable lead over Ferrari in the constructors’ standings with three rounds to spare.
A ninth constructors’ title for Mercedes, their first since claiming eight in a row from 2014-2021, brings the Silver Arrows level with Williams in third on the sport’s all-time list of winners.
“It’s amazing,” Mercedes team principal Toto Wolff said. “We have taken a few years to be back at the top spot. Not many teams have been able to come back from such a situation and it just shows the great work, the great people we have in our organisation and it’s great to be among them.”
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Mercedes party on the podium after sealing their ninth Constructors’ Championship title.
Norris lost the lead to Antonelli at the start as the pole-sitter dropped to third on the opening lap, but a early-race switch to slick tyres as the track dried swung the race.
Antonelli had led by six seconds before the stops but delayed pitting by a lap and then struggled with his tyre temperatures, spinning off to give the lead back to Norris before also being overtaken by both Red Bulls.
The rain returned in the closing stages to force the entire field back onto intermediate tyres, but Norris handled the conditions masterfully to take the chequered flag just short of 15 seconds clear of Verstappen.
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Kimi Antonelli loses the lead by going off track twice to slip to third.
“It was a very tough race, very very tough,” Norris said. “I didn’t have the best of launches off the line. A lot of challenges today with the conditions and going onto slicks in the wet is always tough, especially when you are pushing for the lead and trying to catch up a little bit.
“The main thing today was I kept it cool and didn’t make any mistakes and had the pace when I needed to. Nice to be back on the top step and what a place to do it as well.”
Norris’ team-mate Oscar Piastri claimed sixth, which meant McLaren matched Red Bull’s haul of 33 points from the race and stayed 17 points behind them in the battle for third in the constructors’ standings.
Charles Leclerc finished seventh after passing Racing Bulls’ Liam Lawson during a final-lap scrap, but their positions were reversed as the Ferrari driver was given a five-second penalty for causing a collision between the pair during the overtake.
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Charles Leclerc and Liam Lawson touch on lap 70 as they battle for seventh!
Lewis Hamilton surged from 20th on the grid up to ninth on the first lap, but was ultimately unable to improve on that position after struggling for pace amid a couple of tyre gambles as the conditions changed.
Nico Hulkenberg took the final point in 10th for Audi, holding onto the position despite having to serve a penalty late in the race for forcing Alpine’s Franco Colapinto off track in an earlier battle.
Rafael Camara was last of the cars to take the chequered flag in 20th for Haas as he made his grand prix debut at his home race following the team’s fall out with Esteban Ocon at last weekend’s race in Mexico City.
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Lando Norris shatters champagne bottle after attempting his trademark podium celebration after winning Sao Paulo GP.
Norris stages recovery to return to winning ways
Having been the only team to bring a significant upgrade to Brazil at this late stage of the season, McLaren arrived in Sao Paulo hopeful of taking a step forward.
Norris had taken full advantage of the team’s earlier upgrades to win back-to-back races either side of F1’s summer break, but after being unlucky to miss out a third victory in Madrid, the Woking squad’s pace has faded.
The Brit was adamant that the wet conditions qualifying took place in on Saturday were more crucial than the upgrades in enabling him to take pole, and he got his wish as the rain returned on Sunday.
However, the start was far from ideal as a poor getaway saw him fall behind both Antonelli and Lawson, who was starting from third after being promoted by grid penalties for several others.
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Kimi Antonelli passes Lando Norris for the lead in the opening lap at Sao Paulo GP.
It wasn’t until lap six that Norris got his tyres working well enough to pass Lawson, but he was still losing time to Antonelli, who at one point extended his lead beyond eight seconds.
As the track dried, Norris began to close the gap, before Hamilton became the first driver to switch from intermediates to soft slick tyres at the end of lap 14.
Reacting to Hamilton’s strong pace, Norris pitted on lap 16, while leader Antonelli opted to stay out.
That proved to be a mistake from Mercedes as when Antonelli pitted a lap later, he came out only a second ahead of Norris, with the McLaren driver’s tyres fired up and working much better than the leaders.
Just a week on from becoming F1’s youngest ever world champion, the 20-year-old sounded distressed over team radio as he expressed concern that his car wasn’t working properly.
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Lando Norris wins the Sao Paulo GP ahead of Red Bull’s Max Verstappen and Isack Hadjar.
That soon told as he spun off at Turn 1, allowing Norris to ease into the lead, and soon allowing the Red Bulls to follow through.
Norris never looked like relinquishing the lead from that moment, showing consistently strong pace to extend his lead before calmly managing the switch back to intermediates with 10 laps to go.
Verstappen is renowned for his pace in the wet, but Norris was more than a match in the final stages, maintaining and then extending his lead to join the Dutchman and Russell on three race wins for the season.
Verstappen the star of ‘reverse grid’ race
Unlike some of its junior categories, F1 has not introduced a reverse grid race, where cars start in the opposite order that they have qualified.
However, there was something of a ‘reverse’ feel to Sunday’s grid with several of the drivers at the top of the championship serving penalties for exceeding their engine part allowance for the season.
Hamilton and Verstappen were starting from 20th and 21st respectively, with Russell seventh and Leclerc 14th.
Hamilton made an incredible start to jump to ninth on the first lap, while Verstappen wasn’t far behind, slotting into 10th behind the Ferrari by lap three.
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Karun Chandhok looks at how Max Verstappen went from 21st to 2nd at Interlagos.
A mistake from Hamilton allowed Verstappen past, and from that point on their races went in vastly different directions.
While Hamilton struggled for pace and had to give back one of the positions he’d gained illegally on the first lap from Haas’ Oliver Bearman, Verstappen continued to surge forward.
The four-time world champion was soon up to fifth, and was gifted another place as Russell spun in the pit lane on his way back out to the track having switched to slick tyres.
Antonelli’s struggles gave him another place, before Red Bull ordered Hadjar to allow his team-mate past on lap 38 as Verstappen closed in.
While there was no victory this time around, Verstappen made it eight podiums in a row and 10 in his last 11 races, a run of form that is likely to see the 29-year-old go into the winter as the favourite for next year’s title.
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Max Verstappen says that despite his progression from P21 to P2 at the Sao Paulo Grand Prix, his car was ‘not working’.
“It was a challenging race,” Verstappen said. “The first few laps were, of course, very important and I overtook a lot of cars. Actually, that first stint on the stints was very, very strong.
“Unfortunately, after that, I don’t know if we picked up some kind of damage, because the car felt like the complete opposite I’ve felt the whole weekend with some really weird balance.
“Once I got into P2 I couldn’t really make any inroads. So, we have to understand what went wrong there but, I mean, starting in P21 and being on the podium in second is a very good result.”
F1 next hits The Strip for the Las Vegas Grand Prix, live on Sky Sports F1 from November 20-22. Stream Sky Sports with NOW
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