Will Verstappen penalty hand Norris an open goal? Six Brazilian GP talking points · RaceFans

The third and final weekend of F1’s triple-header tour of the Americas, the Brazilian Grand Prix is always one of the most popular rounds of the championship.

This weekend could be a pivotal one for Lando Norris’ prospects of catching Max Verstappen in the championship battle. Not only will the sprint race offer extra points, but Sunday’s grand prix could be critical if the championship leader has to start from the midfield.

But after further controversy between the title contenders last weekend, there’s one topic that will likely dominate discussions in the paddock once again. These are the talking points for the Brazilian Grand Prix.

Verstappen’s grid drop

One of the major plot points of last weekend was that Verstappen appears to be facing considerable trouble with his power unit allocation once again.

He missed a significant amount of track time on Friday with a recurring power unit problem which meant he set no meaningful laps of running during the second practice session. Even if that was not a representative session due to the tyre test taking place, it still meant he headed into the race with far fewer long run practice laps than he would have liked.

Whether that ultimately limited his race pace on Sunday or not, we’ll likely never know. However, a more pressing problem is that Verstappen is now right on the limit of power unit availability once again, assuming the unit he ran last Friday is unsalvageable. If he has to take a new power unit this weekend, that will be a grid drop of ten places for Sunday’s grand prix.

Interlagos is not a terrible track to take a grid penalty. It has one of the most generous DRS zones and there are overtaking opportunities into the Senna Esses and Descida do Lago. However, Brazil can often produce incidents and accidents, which means Verstappen could be uncomfortably vulnerable if he has to start in the mid-pack. Either way, this weekend could present Norris a major opportunity to take more points off Verstappen in the championship.

Racing rules row rumbles on

As much of a shame as it is, it’s starting to feel that the first championship battle to still be alive at Interlagos since 2021 will again be dominated by discussions over the rules of racing.

For both rounds in this triple header in the Americas so far, there have been multiple incidents where drivers have been forced off track by rivals. Some have been penalised. Others have not. Some have been punished with penalties of five seconds. Others punished with ten seconds.

But, naturally, the most controversial incidents have involved the two drivers at the top of the championship standings – Verstappen and Norris. Last Sunday’s race saw the world champion hit with two separate ten second penalties for forcing Norris off the track, dropping him behind the Mercedes pair into sixth place and being the first time the Red Bull driver has been penalised since their first clash at the Red Bull Ring.

This weekend, the teams head to Interlagos – the scene of one of the most infamous incidents involving Verstappen’s aggressive racing style. Back in 2021, he and Lewis Hamilton memorably both left the track at the left-hander of Descida do Lago while fighting for the lead. Although there was no action taken by the stewards on that occasion, it’s hard to imagine the same happening should history repeat this weekend.

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Piastri’s poor tour of the Americas

Oscar Piastri, McLaren, Autodromo Hermanos Rodriguez, 2024 — Piastri’s form has been indifferent lately

Oscar Piastri had two excellent weekends in Italy and Azerbaijan, beating his team mate in both rounds and reaching the top step of the podium in Baku. But since that excellent second career victory, Piastri’s red-hot form appears to have cooled off.

Although he took a podium in Singapore, he was still significantly off from his team mate who won the race comfortably. But then in the first two rounds of the triple-header weekend in the United States and Mexico, Piastri has not had a particularly consistent showing. First, he was knocked out of SQ1 in sprint qualifying in Austin before finishing fifth in the grand prix. Then last weekend in Mexico, he failed to progress out of Q1 for the first time all season after he was unable to recover from a mistake late in the session.

In his defence, Piastri was not on the latest floor specification like his team mate. But though he recovered to eighth on Sunday he was unable to help Norris in his battle against Verstappen like McLaren would have hoped he would. Now, Ferrari are building momentum in the constructors’ championship and have passed Red Bull into second place. Piastri needs a strong weekend in Brazil, as his team need from him too.

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Lawson not making friends

Liam Lawson, Sergio Perez, Autodromo Hermanos Rodriguez, 2024

Liam Lawson has been handed a critical opportunity to make a case for him to have a permanent race seat in 2025 by racing in the final six rounds of the championship.

So far, he has taken two points in Austin and suffered front wing damage while fighting with Franco Colapinto in the latter stages of the Mexican Grand Prix. But Lawson has also been earning some stern words from some of the most experienced drivers in the field.

He started off getting criticism from Fernando Alonso for his aggressive racing in the Austin sprint race, then was called an “idiot” by Sergio Perez multiple times during the Mexican Grand Prix after the pair of them clashed while battling early in Sunday’s race.

Will Lawson court the wrath of any other rivals this weekend in Brazil?

Colapinto’s ‘home’ grand prix

Franco Colapinto's 2024 Mexican Grand Prix helmet — Lawson infuriated Perez in Mexico

For a driver who never would have expected to be racing in Formula 1 heading into 2024, Franco Colapinto has made one of the strongest impressions of any driver in the field over his five grands prix weekends so far.

Although his last weekend in Mexico was not his best, Colapinto has achieved far more in five race weekends than his predecessor managed in six times as many rounds, scoring points in two of those grands prix to help Williams to eighth in the championship after being well behind Alpine in ninth when he first took over the seat.

As an Argentinian driver, Colapinto naturally does not have a home grand prix of his own on the calendar. However, this weekend in Brazil will be the closest round to his native Argentina, and given how he was mobbed by fans in both Austin and Mexico, it’s likely that Colapinto will be the most popular driver in the field this weekend – even if Brazil and Argentina have long had the strongest sporting rivalries in all of South America.

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Taking the ‘esports’ line

Carlos Sainz Jnr’s pole-winning lap last weekend in Mexico was notable not just because the Ferrari driver beat both main championship protagonists to the top spot on the grid, but because he chose not to follow the traditional racing line exiting the final corner on the run to the line.

Sainz later explained his unusual line to finish the lap was inspired by Norris from their time together at McLaren. Referring to it as the “iRacing line” in allusion to Norris’s simracing exploits, the technique of trying to minimise lateral movement at the end of a qualifying lap is hardly exclusive to the world’s most popular simracing platform.

As demonstrated by 2022 F1 Simracing world champion Lucas Blakeley below, hugging the pit wall on the run to the line in Interlagos is considered to be the shortest run to finishing a lap. Will Sainz’s actions last weekend see more drivers adopting this approach in the two qualifying sessions this weekend?

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