Race Report: Strong Sunday in São Paulo

Kimi Antonelli took second in today’s São Paulo Grand Prix with George Russell scoring solid points in P4.

That marks the 19-year-old's second podium of the season and his best result in his F1 career, following on from his P3 finish in Canada earlier this season.

Kimi lined up on the front-row, opting to start on the Soft compound tyre with George in P6 on the Medium.

The early stages were impacted by several crashes, with the McLaren of Oscar Piastri making contact with Kimi into turn one after a Safety Car restart. The Australian was adjudged at fault and handed a 10-second penalty.

A mixture of tyre compounds and strategies were employed in a mixed-up race but, after each driver had made their second stops, Kimi and George were on the Medium tyre running P2 and P3.

With George managing brake temperatures, Verstappen used his fresher Soft tyres to take P3 but the Brit successfully resisted the pressure from Piastri to take P4.

Kimi meanwhile did similar with Verstappen, holding off the Red Bull despite running on older and harder tyres to take P2.

After a strong points haul over the weekend, the team heads into the final triple-header of the season back in P2 in the Constructors’ Championship with a 32-point lead over Red Bull with Ferrari a further four points behind.

George Russell

It’s been a tough weekend for me. I’ve been struggling with the car and to find the necessary pace to really challenge at the front. To take home P4 after a long race is a good result, both for me and for the team given our position in the Constructors’ Championship. I was having to manage my brake temperatures at the end and that made it more difficult to fight Verstappen for P3. Realistically though, I’m not sure we had the pace today to get on the podium.

Our goal for the end of the season is clear: beat Red Bull and Ferrari to P2 come Abu Dhabi. This weekend has put us back in the driving seat in the battle and hopefully we can build on that in the year-ending triple-header. Kimi did a great job to get P2 too. He’s been super quick all weekend and that’s great to see. We will be working as pair to score as many points as possible and hopefully come out on top by the time we reach the chequered flag at Yas Marina.

Andrew Shovlin, Trackside Engineering Director

Today's result is very welcome following a couple of difficult weekends in Austin and Mexico. It was also great to see Kimi get his first P2 finish in F1.

The race got off to a rather busy start for both drivers. George had a decent start but lost a place around the outside of turn one to a car on the Soft tyre. He was struggling with oversteer which wasn't helped by having to push to get through Lawson and Hadjar. He was able to extend the stint but we decided to commit to two stops and take the Soft tyre in the middle phase. Unfortunately, we didn't quite have the pace to keep Verstappen behind, but he did a great job to hold P4 from Piastri in the closing stages.

Kimi had a relatively uneventful start but the same cannot be said of the Safety Car restart. He was the middle one of three cars into turn one and when Piastri locked on the inside and ran into him, Kimi got knocked into Leclerc. Luckily, we were able to keep going and managed to stay ahead of Piastri at the finish but it was a big hit that seemed to hurt the balance and consistency of the car. Overall, we didn't have the pace to fight for a win today but P2 is very satisfying result for Kimi and 43 points total this weekend is a nice result for the team.