Max Verstappen’s victory on Sunday was undoubtedly one of his finest, not least because this was the lowest starting position he’s ever won a race from.
He stormed through to win from 17th on the grid, albeit with two empty spaces ahead of him. The last driver to win from that far back was Kimi Raikkonen in the 2005 Japanese Grand Prix.
F1’s grid is too small for anyone to be able to break the record for winning a race from the lowest starting position. The record is still held by John Watson, who won the 1983 United States Grand Prix West at Long Beach from 22nd. The last race at which that could have been equalled was the 2016 Abu Dhabi Grand Prix, before Manor collapsed, leaving F1 with 10 teams.
The lowest starting position Verstappen had previously won a race from was 14th, at the 2022 Belgian Grand Prix. He has now taken victories from 10 different starting positions on the grid, breaking Fernando Alonso’s record of nine.
Verstappen ended a run of 10 consecutive grands prix without a victory to take the 62nd win of his career. This means he has now won as many times as F1’s first six world champions combined: Giuseppe Farina (five), Juan Manuel Fangio (24), Alberto Ascari (13), Mike Hawthorn (three), Jack Brabham (14) and Phil Hill (three). Their careers spanned the first two decades of the world championship and they claimed 13 championships between them.
Although this was Verstappen’s eighth victory this season, it was the first he’s scored from outside the front row. He is the fifth different driver to win from off the front row this year, joining Lewis Hamilton, Charles Leclerc, Lando Norris and George Russell. F1 last had five winners from outside the front row in 2020, including Verstappen and Hamilton again, plus Valtteri Bottas, Pierre Gasly and Sergio Perez.
On Saturday, Verstappen saw his run of winning every sprint race this year broken, by Norris. Later that day rain prevented qualifying from going ahead as scheduled, so it was postponed to Sunday, as last happened when Super Typhoon Hagibis disrupted the 2019 Japanese Grand Prix.
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When it finally began, Norris claimed the eighth pole position of his career. He now has as many as John Surtees, Jenson Button and Riccardo Patrese.
Esteban Ocon took his best starting position of the season with fourth place, but that was nothing compared to what followed later that day in the grand prix. The Alpine driver led a race for only the third time in his career and achieved his best result since his breakthrough win in Hungary three years ago with second place.
With Pierre Gasly third, Alpine enjoyed their first double podium finish. This team last had a podium finish at the 2013 Korean Grand Prix, when it competed as Lotus, and Raikkonen took second ahead of Romain Grosjean.
Alpine’s 35-point windfall (Gasly added two points by finishing seventh in the sprint race) increased the team’s points haul by 250% and lifted it three places to sixth in the championship. That sets up a three-way fight to head the bottom half of F1’s points table, as Haas and RB are within just five points of them.
Yuki Tsunoda equalled his best result of the season with seventh place, which he previously scored in Australia and Miami. He and team mate Liam Lawson both claimed the highest starting positions of their careers, Tsunoda third and Lawson fifth in his eighth grand prix.
For the second race in a row, and the second Brazilian Grand Prix in a row, Alexander Albon completed no racing laps on Sunday. This time he failed to even start, as did Lance Stroll, and so for the first time since the 2022 Saudi Arabian Grand Prix two drivers were missing from the grid. On that occasion the absent cars belonged to Tsunoda, due to a formation lap technical failure, and Mick Schumacher, who crashed heavily during qualifying.
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Stroll’s absence from the grid was especially galling for his Aston Martin team after their hard work to repair the damage caused by his qualifying crash. This should have been the race at which he set a new record for most races started by a Canadian F1 driver. Instead he’ll have to wait for the Las Vegas Grand Prix to notch up his 164th start and overtake Jacques Villeneuve.
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2024 Brazilian Grand Prix
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