Lando Norris was asked after the Sao Paulo Grand Prix if he was now thinking about the championship, having extended his lead in one weekend from one point to a comfortable margin.
“Not at all,” he said.
Whether he means it or not, the result leaves him in a commanding position. His second successive win moves him 24 points clear of team-mate Oscar Piastri, while Max Verstappen is 49 adrift. With a maximum of 83 points available across the remaining three races, the title is not sealed, but Norris heads to Las Vegas with clear control.
The balance of the season has flipped dramatically in the past seven races. Piastri left the Dutch Grand Prix in late August with a 34-point lead after his seventh win of the season and Norris’ retirement. Since then, Piastri’s form has collapsed while Norris has improved markedly. Over those seven grands prix, including two sprints, Norris has swung 58 points in his favour.
Brazil was a near-perfect weekend for Norris: pole, sprint victory and the grand prix, without looking threatened. He conceded he was disappointed by how quick Verstappen appeared and said he’d go over the weekend with his team to see where they could improve. The win in Sao Paulo was Norris’ seventh of the season, achieved in the 21st grand prix — underlining how the championship narrative has changed from earlier in the year.
Norris attributes part of his resurgence to learning to manage external pressures better. He said he had cared too much about perceptions and media earlier in the season, which affected him, and that he has learned to be true to himself, more confident and focused on performance rather than outside noise.
For Piastri, Sao Paulo was another tough weekend. His crash out of third in the sprint handed Norris the championship lead and was the latest in a run of costly mistakes: multiple significant errors across recent events, adding to earlier incidents such as a jumped start in Baku and involvement in the Austin sprint crash that took out both McLarens. In the grand prix, a bold move into Turn One at the restart resulted in contact with Kimi Antonelli and Charles Leclerc; stewards judged Piastri fully to blame and imposed a 10-second penalty, although he recovered to finish fifth. Piastri acknowledged the penalty and said his main concern is finding the pace he wants for the remaining races.
If the headline of the weekend belongs to Norris, the standout individual performance was arguably Verstappen’s. Having struggled for pace all weekend — he was fourth in the sprint and knocked out in the first part of qualifying for the first time in his career, qualifying 16th — Red Bull opted to change the car setup and fit a new engine after qualifying. That forced Verstappen to start from the pit lane.
Early in the race he suffered a puncture on lap six and dropped to the back, but once on the preferred medium tyre he carved his way through the field to finish third. At one point, when Norris made his final stop, Verstappen briefly inherited the lead, highlighting how strong his recovery was. Red Bull and some rival engineers debated whether a different tyre strategy might have given Verstappen a shot at victory, but Red Bull team principal Laurent Mekies and McLaren’s Andrea Stella pointed to severe tyre degradation and judged the chosen pit strategy sensible.
Verstappen and his team described the drive as “incredible” and “sensational” — a remarkable recovery on a dry track after starting from the pits and suffering an early puncture. Yet the result does little to alter the championship maths: being 49 points behind with three races to go makes a comeback difficult. Verstappen reflected that the title was largely lost earlier in the season when Red Bull were often not quick enough, and vowed to keep fighting for race wins in the remaining events.
In short, Norris delivered a champion’s weekend in Sao Paulo — faultless across qualifying, the sprint and the grand prix — while Verstappen produced one of the drives of the year despite his earlier setbacks. Piastri, meanwhile, must find form and consistency fast if he is to challenge again.
