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Qualifying
This should be a no brainer: Hamilton and Bottas were quickest throughout practice, therefore it should be an easy 1-2 for Mercedes, right?
Hamilton lost it heading into Turn 6 (Ferradura) and slammed into the outside barriers on his first out lap. When asked about it later he had no explanation. The car was fine, he just pushed it a bit too hard and off he went. For the season he has had, this was quite an embarrassing mistake. We have seen plenty of mistakes from the other front runners (the start at Singapore immediately comes to mind), but Hamilton has generally had as good of a season as one could ask for. His momentary error meant he would start from dead last on the grid, despite the fact that a number of (Renault powered) cars were starting with grid penalties.
Hamilton’s derp left the front row wide open. Vettel and Bottas traded fast laps, but Bottas was able to dig deep and put in a final flyer to push him above the Ferrari and give Bottas his third career pole. Vettel and Raikkonen were third, followed by Verstappen, Sergio Perez, and Fernando Alonso. Daniel Ricciardo would have started fourth, but his MGU-H replacement meant he would drop 10 positions. After his crash, Mercedes decided to play the strategy card and replace Hamilton’s engine. This meant he would start from pitlane, but the shiny new engine gave Mercedes a key advantage: it removed the big risk of reliability concerns for both Brazil and the Abu Dhabi finale. More so, it would allow Mercedes to run Hamilton at 100% output. While other teams are conserving their engines in the final races, Hamilton will have the wick turned up.
Pre-Race Podium Prediction
On Saturday morning, before qualifying, my prediction would have been Hamilton, Bottas, Verstappen. With Hamilton relegated to the rear of the field, my podium became Vettel, Bottas, and Verstappen. While Mercedes has the quicker car, Vettel and Ferrari are wounded animals, smelling blood. Early in the year, Ferrari beat Mercedes on strategy, and I figured they would do so again in Brazil. Bottas would take the lead at the start, Ferrari would manage their tires and the gap to Mercedes, and then undercut Bottas during the pit stop. As for Verstappen, Interlagos is a track that suits the RB13 well with lots of fast corners that should make the RB13 happy. If Red Bull had been quicker throughout the week, I could have even pegged Max to win, but RBR trailed both Ferrari and Mercedes throughout practice and qualifying, so that seemed a bit risky.
Race
Sebastian Vettel made a great start and was able to slip inside Valtteri Bottas and nab the lead as the field went through the Senna S. Behind them, well, a mele. Kevin Magnussen, Stoffel Vandoorne, and Daniel Ricciardo all attempted to go through Turn 2 side by side and it went well for none of them. Ricciardo was forced into the dirt. Magnussen, on the inside, kept moving out, sandwiching Vandoorne in the middle. The three collided, sending Ricciardo into a spin. Ricciardo came across the nose of Magnussen’s car, but was able to keep moving. Both Magnussen and Vandoorne were out on the spit with broken suspensions. A local yellow flew, but in the Ferrardura, the sister Haas of Romain Grosjean spun while trying to pass Esteban Ocon. Grosjean slid into Ocon, knocking Ocon out of the race, and thus ending Ocon’s perfect record of finishing every single F1 race he had started (a total of 27). The safety car was called out, so the stricken cars could be cleared away. Grosjean was eventually given a 10 second penalty for causing his accident. This really didn’t make a lot of sense since Grosjean clearly didn’t intend to spin off, much less into another car.
With the Safety Car cleared, Vettel brought the field back to the green on Lap 5. Hamilton was already carving his way through the field, already up to 11th after starting on the pit lane. By Lap 15, he was up to 7th, trailing Fernando Alonso and Felipe Massa. 10 laps later, he was into the top group, on the tail of Max Verstappen, Kimi Raikkonen, Bottas, and Vettel. Vettel opened up a slight lead on Bottas, keeping him just out of DRS range. Pit stops began on Lap 28, with Williams pulling in Massa early on. The front pair pitted and this gave Bottas an opportunity to attack Vettel, though Vettel was able to hold off the Finn and keep his advantage. With the front runners pitting, this actually handed the lead over…to Hamilton! Running a strategy counter to the front runners, he had started on the soft tires (the harder of the two teams were running over the weekend) and planned to run a long early stint.
This left Mercedes (and Hamilton) with an interesting option. Hamilton could feasibly pit fairly late, put on the super softs, and try to rip his way back into the lead. Or, they could leave him out and use him to back Vettel into Bottas, thus securing the win for their secondary driver. On top of that, Hamilton could even do a two-stop race with two stints on the super soft and try to out-pace the top four, either forcing them to concede position to the quicker car, or forcing them into a two-stop race themselves. The window for that to work was fairly small, only about 10 laps before a second stop would be useless.
Hamilton and Ricciardo both pitted on Lap 44, both moving from soft to super soft. Hamilton especially was pushing hard, trying to reel in the top 4, setting the fastest lap soon after his stop. With a dozen laps to go, Hamilton got a great run on Verstappen and was able to climb back into fourth. The hunt was on for the podium: Raikkonen was only a few seconds up the road and Hamilton had the time to both catch and pass for 3rd. Now, the battle was heating up, Vettel managing his tires, but Bottas and Raikkonen were starting to pick up the pace, to catch Vettel and fend off Hamilton respectively. However, as Hamilton closed in on Raikkonen, his tires were no longer up to snuff and he was forced to settle for fourth. Vettel kept his lead and took the win, followed by Bottas and Raikkonen. Behind them Verstappen and Ricciardo came home 5th and 6th, with Felipe Massa, the best of the rest in his hope grand prix. Alonso finished 8th and gave his former teammate a congratulatory round of applause as they drove together on the cool down lap.
