Mercedes winning the 2026 Formula 1 constructors’ championship with its first non-podium race of the season summed up this wild Brazilian Grand Prix, as a wildly mixed grid and ever-changing weather combined to create plenty of entertainment.
And some fared much worse than others.
Winner: Lando Norris (1st)
Lando Norris considered this one of his best wins, and it’s hard to argue, as there were plenty of chances to get it wrong.
He lost the lead in Turn 1 and was then relegated from second place by Liam Lawson in Turn 2. By the time the pole sitter brought Lawson back into Pato’s Bico on lap six, he was more than five seconds behind Kimi Antonelli and a victory was doable but difficult.
His race started from the first big call. McLaren brought Norris to slicks a lap before Mercedes did the same to Antonelli, and that extra lap on hot tires allowed Norris to close the gap and pounce once Antonelli began to slip.
After that, he made no mistakes in conditions where Antonelli, among others, made many. -Scott Mitchell-Malm
Loser: Kimi Antonelli (5th)
Is it rude to put the Mercedes pair in the loser column on the day Mercedes finally ended a constructors’ title drought dating back to 2021?
Maybe. But Mercedes only unhooked the manufacturers’ title today. He actually won months ago. And if Ferrari hadn’t suffered such an abject racing disaster, Mercedes’ party might have had to wait until Las Vegas.
Because the Brazilian GP itself was nothing but a blur for Mercedes and its new drivers’ champion – Kimi Antonelli lost the race lead and slipped to fifth place with a so far undiagnosed problem which, according to team boss Toto Wolff, was probably just a tuning or tire pressure error with serious consequences. A dangerous pit exit penalty did not cost him a position, but somewhat characterized his day.
He ended the party celebrating on the podium with his team, but by Antonelli 2026 standards, that race itself was weak. – Mate beer
Winner: Max Verstappen (2nd)
A podium finish from 21st on the grid would have been quite impressive. But according to his own words, Max Verstappen did most of the race with a car that was not good.
Leaving was his fault. He held the clutch poorly, was slow, then got stuck in the chaos of the first three corners. So there was no instant Lewis Hamilton-style charge from the back.
But once things calmed down, progress was rapid. Then came the switch to slicks, and with it extreme oversteer in high-speed corners which Verstappen said was something of an aerodynamic loss.
When he returned to the intermediates at the end, Verstappen said the car was night and day different from the first stint, which proved to him that something was wrong. -SMM
Loser: George Russell (4th)
“I would say with the soft tires we had the fastest race pace. And it’s been a while since I had the fastest race pace, so I would take the positive from that.”
Yeah, okay. And fourth place was actually Russell’s best Grand Prix result since his victory in Baku five rounds ago. And he beat Antonelli, which had not happened since Baku either. And he’s right, there were times when he was really fast. And he helped Mercedes win its first constructors’ championship since 2021.
So yeah, okay George, some positives to take.
But the most memorable image of his Brazilian GP remains an embarrassing spin out of the pits, and a painfully slow recovery, which at least leaves him in a nothing-to-lose position from which he can take the tire gamble that allows him to move back up the order. And on a day when Antonelli couldn’t win, Russell never came close to giving Mercedes victory himself. -Mo
Winner: Liam Lawson (7th)
This weekend did absolutely nothing to dispel the notion that Liam Lawson being left without a seat in F1 next year would be a travesty.
He was clearly a few steps ahead of his Racing Bulls teammate Arvid Lindblad all weekend and reached second place on the first lap.
The quickly drying track denied him a chance to stay there, but he still beat the Ferraris once Charles Leclerc’s penalty was applied and won the midfield battle for the fifth consecutive weekend.
Their total of 2,026 points alone is comfortably better than Alpine’s, as nearest rival Racing Bulls suffered their fifth pointless weekend in six.
This means that Racing Bulls are even closer to securing a historic fifth place in the constructors’ championship, something Red Bull’s second team has long aimed for since the days of Franz Tost Toro Rosso.
And yet he (or rather Red Bull) may ultimately abandon the man who made a significant contribution to it. -Josh Suttill
Loser: Ferrari (8th & 9th)
Ferrari only wins to the extent that its drivers Leclerc and Lewis Hamilton managed to work reasonably well together in Brazil.
Their cooperation only secured the team minor points, a 2026 worst score of just six once Leclerc was demoted behind Lawson.
All of this can’t be explained by Leclerc and Hamilton’s grid penalties either. Verstappen came in behind them both in second place, as the two Ferraris took turns battling massively and both took turns looking incredibly fast.
The problem was that these incredibly fast periods were too fleeting, and they had both lost too much time in the slower periods.
Hamilton was also not helped by his late spin and the stewards took back the seventh place Leclerc had snatched from Lawson, making matters even worse. -JS
Winner: Isack Hadjar (3rd)
Isack Hadjar’s third podium for Red Bull came in his biggest test yet.
It wasn’t easy. Midway through the first stint on the intermediates, he struggled with grip, and finishing so close to teammate Verstappen is obviously mitigated by the fact that Verstappen started at the back of the grid.
But it was a very careful race with a strong pace on slicks and incisive movements, notably the overtake he made on Antonelli to reach the podium places. -SMM
Loser: Rafa Camara (20th)
Although it seems difficult to count him in this list given that there couldn’t be more difficult conditions to make your F1 debut, Rafael Camara’s first Grand Prix was an experience to learn from rather than a memory.
He finished 20th and last of the classified runners, two laps down, had enough lap times deleted for track limits, earning him a black and white flag – one of which was for leaving Turn 4 immediately after leaving the pits.
The conditions were extremely difficult and Haas as a whole had a bad day, but it was a weak start that underestimated what the rest of his weekend had shown: an impressive Friday and qualifying, where he was doing well until the crash in Q2 that cost him a place in Q3.
“We experienced everything in one race, so it wasn’t easy to stay on track,” said Camara, who admitted there were “some mistakes I didn’t really expect” to be made. -SMM
Winner: Nico Hülkenberg (10th)
Finishing 10th after starting fourth may seem like a race not worthy of the winner’s column, especially as his second-row compatriot Lawson managed to split the Ferraris, but Hülkenberg fought hard and held on better than many of his other midfield rivals.
Ollie Bearman was only two places further back on the grid in his Haas, but suffered a terrible regression down to 17th, mainly thanks to a 20-second pit stop.
As he said, “when you stand still for 20 seconds in the pit lane, it’s game over.”
Alex Albon also regressed after a favorable start in the top 10, saying his Williams “destroyed the inter” and simply fell back into pure pace as the track dried out.
Hülkenberg was handed a penalty for cutting the track while battling Franco Colapinto’s intransigent Alpine, but such were the misfortunes suffered by his many midfield rivals that they had no bearing on Hülkenberg’s final position.
Just one point scored in the end, but that could prove valuable in Audi’s tight fight with Haas for seventh place in the constructors’ championship, which Bearman believes Haas is now “giving away”. -Ben Anderson
Loser: Valtteri Bottas (DNS)
Failing to start a Grand Prix because a cross-threaded wheel nut discovered on the grid has locked a wheel and desperate attempts to remove it have made no difference is a sad and embarrassing situation.
What happens to a driver who struggles to convince his team not to let him down is even worse. -Mo
Gn sports
