Why Brazilian GP spectacular goes far beyond F1's sprint race hype

It is hard to argue against the Brazilian Grand Prix weekend delivering probably the best three days of Formula 1 action we’ve had all season.

From Kevin Magnussen’s shock pole position on Friday, George Russell’s surprise win in the sprint race on Saturday and then his emotional triumph in an action-packed thriller on Sunday, it was brilliant entertainment throughout. But in a world where all too often causation and correlation are confused with each other, it would be wrong to think that the treats rolled out at Interlagos were simply because it was another sprint race weekend.

PLUS: What the Verstappen/Hamilton Brazil clash teaches us about F1 2021's rematch

While the sprint itself was pretty decent, and perhaps the most exciting one we’ve ever had, there were much more important factors at play that made the Sao Paulo weekend all that it turned out to be. What Interlagos really proved was that good grands prix are triggered by mixed up grids; strategy uncertainty for teams and a track that exposes mistakes and allows overtaking.

If you have to pick out one factor that spices up a motor race, it is mixed up grids. F1 has long known – and there is no better example than the 2005 Japanese Grand Prix – that if you put the fastest cars down the order on Sunday, then them charging through delivers excitement.

The Interlagos grid was shaken up thanks to the weather. The on-off rain on Friday not only gave us the feel-good shock pole for Kevin Magnussen, but also had some big hitters down the order.

Charles Leclerc was in 10th because of Ferrari’s wrong intermediate tyre call, Sergio Perez one place in front of him after being held up by the Monegasque, and Lewis Hamilton in eighth after being too late out of the pits on cold tyres so missed the best conditions.

Even without a sprint race on Saturday, F1 already had the elements needed to deliver a decent grand prix as the cars were not lined up in performance order. Although in a parallel universe with no sprint format, qualifying would have been in the dry on Saturday so the order would have been more predictable….

What helped lift things up a notch was Red Bull’s decision to go for the medium in the sprint not paying off. While early on it appeared Max Verstappen would roar away to another win, his tyres falling off a cliff dropped him back and opened the door for Russell’s comeback.

Red Bull's medium tyre pick for the sprint race backfired and opened an opportunity for Russell

Photo by: Red Bull Content Pool

Such uncertainty over tyre life and performance had a lot to do with teams having to do much more guesswork on strategy than on a normal weekend. With the hard tyre not really working at all, that left them focused on two compounds throughout – with the temperature swings thrown into the mix adding to the confused picture.

Best of all for the entertainment factor was the fact that neither the medium nor the soft were ideal for what teams wanted. As Red Bull’s choice to put Verstappen on the harder of the two compounds in the sprint showed: it should have been better for the distance but it actually wasn’t.

Teams not having as clear a picture of tyres as they normally do when there are three practice sessions is actually one of the biggest benefits of the sprint format. It currently locks them into committing to set-ups after just a single practice session on Friday, even though there is an extra hour of running in FP2 on Saturday morning after official qualifying has taken place.

As F1 looks for further tweaks to the sprint format in the future, and considers making the sprints standalone so drivers aren’t held back on Saturday by fear of losing grid slots for the main race, there is an opportunity to give teams even less practice time.

If the sprints do become standalone, then why not just go the whole hog and make Saturday a complete one-shot day. Scrap the FP2 session that has become a bit of a non-event and hold a second qualifying session that decides the grid for a sprint race. It would in effect be a one-day spectacular.

“We have an index of tracks that we believe will be suitable for the sprint. Brazil's at the top of it, somewhere like Monaco will be at the bottom of it" Ross Brawn

The third critical element in Brazil beyond the jumbled up order and far from nailed on tyre strategy calls was the fact that Interlagos is such a great track for racing. Its combination of two very long straights, a diverse range of corners with, critically, multiple lines, and the Senna Esses downhill plunge that invites aggression and punishes mistakes, gives it a very strong case for it to be the best layout on the calendar.

It meant drivers were not trapped where they started, so could come forward from both grid drops and incidents. Hamilton showed this after his recovery from the clash with Verstappen on Sunday. As F1 looks to the future, and pushes to ensure that races continue to deliver entertainment, it should take away these key learnings from Brazil of what are the ingredients that lift an F1 race from average to brilliant.

Multiple factors before the grand prix played out to see Verstappen and Hamilton enact their latest clash

Photo by: Steve Etherington / Motorsport Images

F1’s managing director of motorsport Ross Brawn was pretty open at the weekend about the sensitivity of picking the right venues for sprints in the future. Just as putting them at the wrong track where overtaking is difficult does little to win the sceptics over, having them in the right place for 2023 and beyond is crucial.

“We have an index of tracks that we believe will be suitable for the sprint,” he said. “Brazil's at the top of it, somewhere like Monaco will be at the bottom of it. And we want to have a nice spread of races during the year, and find the right places to have them. But the type of track we go to is a high priority.”

F1’s original venues for this year, before the plans were scuppered by teams last winter, was for sprints in Bahrain, Imola, Montreal, Austria, Zandvoort and Brazil. Based on what we know about the current cars, and where the best venues are for overtaking, swap Imola for Baku and Zandvoort for Spa, and that’s not a bad selection.

Throw in some shifting weather to jumble up the grid, and cut back on the practice hours that help teams nail their running, then there is every chance Brazil’s thrills could become a much more regular occurrence.

Could the key lessons from the Brazilian GP be taken up for the future of sprint races?

Photo by: Alfa Romeo