Formula 1 News: 2024 Sao Paulo Brazil GP at Interlagos Preview
Round 21 of the 2024 FIA F1 series takes the ten F1 teams to Brazil, for the Sao Paulo Grand Prix, at the Autodromo Jose Carlos Pace, also called Interlagos.
Interlagos is a proper driver’s circuit with plenty of undulation and a challenge mix of low, medium, and high-speed corners.
Brazil joined Formula 1’s World Championship in 1973, with the lengthy Interlagos the venue, the district taking its name from its location between the artificial reservoirs of Guarapiranga and Billinges.
The race relocated to Rio de Janeiro’s Jacarepagua through the 1980s but from 1990 a reprofiled Interlagos returned to the calendar and quickly established itself as the permanent home of Brazil’s Formula 1 race. Interlagos, officially called the Autódromo José Carlos Pace, has been the scene of several breathtaking title showdowns, with Kimi Räikkönen, Lewis Hamilton and Sebastian Vettel all sealing last-gasp championships. Brazil’s race was rebranded as the São Paulo Grand Prix under a new arrangement from 2021 and it holds a spot on Formula 1’s schedule through 2030.
The circuit is among Formula 1’s shortest, with 4.3km of tarmac condensed into Interlagos’ small campus, and features two lengthy full-throttle sections connected by long-radius undulating turns.
Interlagos will host the fifth F1 Sprint event of the season, marking the fourth straight year in which the alternative weekend format has been used at the São Paulo Grand Prix.
The record race winner on Brazilian soil is Alain Prost with six victories to his name, ahead of Michael Schumacher on four. Lewis Hamilton shares third place in this category with Carlos Reutemann and Sebastian Vettel, each having won on three occasions. Michael Schumacher has the most podium finishes (10), ahead of Fernando Alonso (8). Lewis once again shares third place, this time with Prost and Kimi Räikkönen, each of them having made seven podium appearances. In the all-time qualifying rankings, the legendary Ayrton Senna is the undisputed leader with six pole positions.
2023 Race
Max Verstappen grabbed the lead from pole at the start, kept Lando Norris at bay, and won the 2023 Sao Paulo GP for his 52nd career F1 win.
–by Mark Cipolloni–
On the soft red Pirelli tires Norris was able to stay within 3 seconds of Verstappen, but when both drivers made their first stop for medium tires, the Red Bull was happier and Verstappen was able to pull away from Norris 0.2 to 0.5s per lap.
After the 2nd pitstop on soft tires, Lando Norris was flying and set fastest race lap, but Verstappen was just managing the gap and saving his tires. Norris got the gap down to 8.2 sec. and then Verstappen responded, winning by 8.277 seconds while saving his engine and tires.
“The starts were very important, both of them were very good,” said a happy Verstappen.
“We were good on any tire, we created a bit of a gap. With the high deg, the focus needed to be there, but luckily it worked out today.”
“Couldn’t have gone much better to be honest, a good start at the beginning to go from sixth to second which was a nice surprise,” said Norris.
“P2 is as good as we can get for the time being. Max always seemed to have an answer to everything which is a shame, but fair play to him.”
In winning his record 17th race of the year in his #1 Red Bull Honda, Verstappen moves into sole 4th place in career F1 wins, breaking the tie he had with Alain Prost. Up next is 3rd place Sebastian Vettel with 53 wins.
Verstappen is only 26 years old.
Couple with his win in Saturday’s Sprint race over Norris, Verstappen had a nearly perfect weekend.
Aston Martin’s Fernando Alonso held off the 2nd Red Bull of Sergio Perez for 3rd in a sensational battle that ended in a photo finish, but Perez will be happy in having beat his main points rival Lewis Hamilton in this race and the Sprint race.
“For me it was like 30 laps I had the pressure from Checo,” said an ecstatic Alonso.
“When he passed me with two laps to go, I though the podium was gone. This is a phenomenal result for the team, we’ve been struggling for a few races, two DNFs but this is for them. Happy with this result – and now to Vegas!”
Wet Race Very Possible
Temperature: 26C/78F
Chance of precipitation: Less than 25%
Overcast conditions with rainy intervals.
Temperature: 27C/80F
Chance of precipitation: 50%
Steady rain throughout the day.
Temperature: 24C/76F
Chance of precipitation: Less than 75%
Fact File: São Paulo Grand Prix
- 309 km long, only behind Monaco, Zandvoort and Mexico.
- The São Paulo Grand Prix venue is situated 800 meters above sea level, the second-highest altitude on the F1 calendar behind Mexico City (which sits at 2,300m above sea level).
- Interlagos is a track of two extremes. The first and third sectors require a low-drag car for the long straights, but the middle sector is twisty, requiring high downforce. The second DRS zone means more focus is typically on higher downforce for the ultimate fastest lap, but a balance still needs to be found with being competitive on the straights during the race.
- There is 1.2 kilometers of driving at full throttle between the exit of Turn 12 and the braking zone for Turn One, with an elevation change of 33 meters.
- The biggest difference in elevation is from the start/finish straight to Turn 4 where there is a 40-metre drop in elevation.
- The long straight before the lap begins also requires some clever deployment of energy from the ERS to maximize performance towards the end of the out lap, as the drivers start their flying lap.
- Turn 1 is banked heavily towards the inside, unloading the front-left wheel and causing frequent lockups. However, because the tire is unloaded, flat spots are less likely and time loss isn’t as high as you’d expect, due to the steep banking and variety of corner lines drivers can take. The variety of lines is also what makes this corner well suited to overtaking.
- The uphill grid requires the drivers to find the balance between holding the car on the brakes as gently as possible, without rolling backwards.
- From Turn 10 to Turn 6 (around 3.5 km of distance) the left-hand front tire does very little work and therefore cools down quickly, providing a tricky engineering challenge to keep the tire in its temperature window.
- With long straights and a second DRS zone, Interlagos is one of the best tracks of the season for overtaking. However, it can be difficult for the defending car to manage its battery, as there aren’t many big braking zones to recover energy.
- The São Paulo Grand Prix is the fifth F1 Sprint of the 2024 season, with just Qatar left on the Sprint calendar this season.
- This will be the fourth consecutive year that the circuit has hosted a Sprint weekend.
- Interlagos is a very flowing circuit with a lot of combined corner entries (where you are cornering and braking at the same time), meaning good stability is important. However, you also need a good front end for the low-speed middle sector.
- Track temperatures can reach some of the hottest of the season in Brazil, up to 60°C. And thunderstorms are common around this time of year, which can potentially spice up the weekend.
- Since 2021, the race around the circuit has been known as the São Paulo Grand Prix.
Unlocking the Lap
A lap begins immediately with the tricky ‘S’ do Senna, named after the Brazilian icon. This is a tricky downhill left-right chicane that merges into the long Curva do Sol.
Heavy braking takes place incredibly late – after the 50-meter board, with drivers decelerating and turning into the cambered, blind-apexed corner, making it easy to lock up. The second part is easy to get wrong by taking too much curb.
Turn 10 – Bico de Pato – is a tricky little hairpin at the end of a sequence of punishing long bends. This is another corner where it is easy to lock a wheel and run wide and this compromises the exit massively.
The last notable corner – Juncao, Turn 12, has been the scene where races and even a World Championship have been decided. The approach is downhill before a climb up to the corner itself. Deceptively tight, this turn needs to be mastered because of the long, uphill blast to the finish line that follows.
Things to look out for
Overtaking: Expect plenty of moves to be made throughout the race and in the Sprint. Oval-like circuit characteristics, high tire wear and tricky braking zones into Turns One and Four all promote overtaking. In fact, over 80 percent of moves are done into T1 or T4 – the end-points of the two long DRS zones.
Safety Cars: The Safety Car often gets used at Interlagos, with 10 appearances in the last five races. The very wet 2016 race featured no fewer than six SC periods. With a low pit-lane time-loss, it is often beneficial to stop during an interruption. VSCs are much less frequent, with the two appearances both coming in 2021.
Strategy: This is regularly a two-stop race due to the ease of overtaking and tire wear, with Pirelli bringing the C2, C3 and C4 compounds for the last time in 2022. The weather can change in an instant and can cause mayhem during a race weekend, keeping every strategist and mechanic on their toes.
TV Schedule (See our full weekend TV Schedule)
Pirelli Tires
The Sao Paulo Grand Prix brings the curtain down on Formula 1’s long trip in the Americas, with the races at Austin, Mexico City and now Interlagos all taking place at one week intervals.
There is a common thread, a very dark one in this case, that links all three of the aforementioned tracks, namely new asphalt. However, while in Austin and Mexico City only sections of the tracks had been resurfaced, in Sao Paulo all 4.309 kilometers has been renewed, including the pit lane. The work was only recently completed and the asphalt was then thoroughly cleaned, using a high-pressure water washing system that removes the sheen that usually appears on brand-new bitumen and this has also increased the abrasiveness of the surface.
Therefore, the track surface will be a completely unknown factor for drivers and teams this weekend. Complicating the puzzle still further is the fact Pirelli has chosen to bring a softer trio of compounds to Brazil than last year: the C3 will be the Hard, with C4 as Medium and C5 as soft. On top of that it’s a Sprint weekend, so that there is only free practice session for teams to find the best set-up, even if, as was seen in Austin, the “short” race in fact proved to be very useful to fine tune the balance of the car for the actual Grand Prix.
At Interlagos, the lateral and longitudinal forces exerted on the tires around the 15 corners of this anticlockwise track are medium to low in intensity and well distributed across both axles. Furthermore, the new track surface could see a lowering of lap times and, as a consequence, an increase of the stress to which the tires are subjected.
The Brazilian weekend usually provides spectacular action. The circuit named in honor of José Carlos Pace presents several overtaking opportunities, but other random factors, such as a high chance of a Safety Car and extremely changeable weather, make the outcome of the Grand Prix uncertain and hard to predict. Usually, the fastest strategy is a two-stop, favoring the use of the softer compounds. Last year, all bar one of the drivers chose to start on the Softs, but a red flag after the start allowed for a switch to Mediums before ending the race on another set of Softs. This year, the fact the compounds are a step softer could open up a wider range of possible strategies, making the race even more exciting.
The Interlagos circuit has hosted 40 Grands Prix, but only the last three have been named after the Paulista city. The previous 37 went by the name of the Brazilian Grand Prix, a race which was also held ten times at Rio de Janeiro’s Jacarepaguà circuit.
The most successful driver in Brazil is Alain Prost with six wins to his name, although only one of those was in Sao Paulo, a track where Michael Schumacher holds the record with four victories. Ayrton Senna tops the list for pole positions with six in his home country, equally divided between the two tracks. At Interlagos, four other drivers have matched Senna’s total: his fellow countrymen Felipe Massa and Rubens Barrichello, Mika Hakkinen and Lewis Hamilton. Of the teams, McLaren is the most successful with 11 wins, although Ferrari has the most wins at Interlagos with nine. The English team tops the list for pole positions in this event with 11 as well as when it comes to those at this weekend’s venue, with nine.
