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# Everything we learned from F1's 2026 Brazilian Grand Prix
- URL: https://www.the-race.com/formula-1/everything-we-learned-from-f1s-2026-brazilian-grand-prix/
- Published: 2026-11-09T15:15:16.000Z
- Updated: 2026-11-09T15:15:16.000Z
- Description: Our main takeaways from F1's thrill-a-minute Brazilian GP at Interlagos
- Author: Scott Mitchell-Malm
- Tags: Formula 1, #brazilian-grand-prix, #max-verstappen, #red-bull, #kimi-antonelli, #george-russell, #mercedes, #rafael-camara, #ferrari, #charles-leclerc, #lewis-hamilton, #alpine, #aston-martin, #fernando-alonso, #honda, #secondary_feature_1

Was the Brazilian Grand Prix the [best race](https://www.the-race.com/formula-1/f1-2026-best-race-or-underwhelming-our-brazilian-gp-verdict/) of the 2026 Formula 1 season? 

It certainly revealed a lot about the teams and drivers, and their various strengths and weaknesses. 

So here's everything we learned at Interlagos, from the subdued way F1's second 2026 title was secured to how F1's latest debutant really got on.

## Verstappen's charge could've been even better

Max Verstappen very strongly hinted that a win was possible in Brazil, even from the back of the grid, had something not gone wrong with his car during the grand prix.

Verstappen didn't know what it was, but he was convinced his car lost aerodynamic performance during the race. He first noticed it when switching from intermediates to slicks, when the car suddenly had extreme high-speed oversteer.

When he went back to intermediates for the last stint as the rain returned at the end of the race, he said it felt like a night-and-day difference to how it had been at the start. That was all the proof Verstappen needed that something wasn't quite right with the car.

Despite this, he charged from 21st on the grid to finish second, only 14.6s behind race winner Norris. Whether he would have beaten Norris outright is obviously a complete hypothetical. But, maybe he would have at least been close enough to have a go.

There is evidence on Isack Hadjar's side of the Red Bull garage that Verstappen could have had a stronger stint, especially on the softs. Hadjar was really quick in this grand prix, especially in certain phases. He spent a decent chunk of the race quicker than Verstappen, even when they were on the same tyre and the same strategy: he was faster on 22 of the 38 laps where they can be compared directly.

That isn't meant to take anything away from Hadjar, who was rightly very pleased with his performance, and this was arguably his most impressive podium yet of his three for Red Bull. "If you ask me right now, it's the best race he has done with us," said team principal Laurent Mekies. "He has raised the bar another time."

Still, you would expect Verstappen to have a bit of an edge. Hence Red Bull wanting to analyse what happened to explain the time loss - and whether it cost Verstappen victory. **\- Scott Mitchell-Malm**

## Even champions have off days

The first stint of this grand prix was going exactly as a newly crowned world champion, and a team on the verge of sealing the constructors' title, would want: Kimi Antonelli led the first 19 laps.

And while the end result was exactly what Mercedes targeted, sealing its first constructors' championship in five years, the wobbly way it got there was at odds with how commanding this season has generally been. The same goes for Antonelli.

The drying track was the first point where things started to slip away as Mercedes left Antonelli out longer than most. He had the most to lose, so being cautious wasn't necessarily a foolish play. But there was a fairly significant price to pay for that caution, because Norris and McLaren timed it absolutely perfectly.

Norris pitted a lap earlier, and that let him wipe out the lead Antonelli had built early on, put him under pressure and force the errors that dropped Antonelli out of the podium positions, let alone the race lead.

It was uncharacteristic from Antonelli, who said he was angry with how the victory was lost. Maybe there was something going on with the car, but this felt more like a different version of Canada or Silverstone. In Montreal he got flustered in battle with George Russell; at Silverstone, with how car damage affected the handling, he didn't handle it as calmly or adjust as quickly as he could have.

That's something he and Mercedes have probably already identified as an area to work on, and it's a reminder that Antonelli is a 20-year-old world champion with room to improve still.

Unfortunately for Mercedes, the other car was already out of victory contention by the time Antonelli spun out of the lead, because Russell had spun in the pitlane.

That is something you very, very rarely see. Although if it's going to happen anywhere, a wet Interlagos pitlane on slicks is probably the most likely candidate, given how the pit exit road winds out once the speed limiter comes off.

"I went quite high-risk because I smelt an opportunity and paid the price," Russell said. It was certainly a bit embarrassing for him, but there's a fairly easy explanation, and his pace was actually really good - right there with Antonelli and Norris as the fastest on the soft - so it's an unfortunate missed opportunity.

He played himself back into the race nicely to beat Antonelli but, in keeping with a grand prix that wasn't quite befitting of Mercedes' new official status as double world champion, the final stint on intermediates was weak for both drivers.

They were upwards of half a second per lap slower than Norris, with Russell's theory that the tyres overheated on the outlap when the track was driest - as he stopped earliest - and went into "a negative spiral". **\- SMM**

## Camara's F1 career can only get better

As debut weekends go, it's hard to imagine tougher circumstances than the ones Rafael Camara faced.

He only got called up at the start of the week and hadn't driven the Haas or any 2026 F1 car before. This was high pressure and challenging, and the forecast never looked like it was going to be on his side. And so it proved.

What's probably equally frustrating and encouraging is that there were so many flashes of potential from Camara. He was very quick in qualifying and got himself into a really nice place, even with the rain that fell during the session. It would not have been a surprise if he'd snuck into Q3 on debut in tough conditions, which would have been very impressive.

In the slick running in the grand prix, he actually compared well to team-mate Ollie Bearman: about a tenth of a second a lap slower on average across two stints on softs. The caveat is that Bearman's race was compromised and he spent some time in traffic. Camara was particularly weak in the intermediate running at the start of the race and again at the end: the gap to Bearman ballooned in both of those stints compared with the softs.

His confidence was surely battered a little by his two offs in qualifying. The first was a mix of aquaplaning and wheelspin that sent the car fishtailing out of control down the Reta Oposta straight. The second was a lock-up at the Juncao Turn 12, where a lot of drivers had trouble, followed by a fairly heavy hit into the barrier.

You can forgive him for not over-pushing at the start of the race. In fact, Haas probably encouraged him not to take any silly risks. So it took a while for him to ease his way in and find his rhythm but, when he did, he was very, very quick.

It would have been better if he could have had a stronger inter stint at the end. But by that point there was nothing to play for and he just needed to bring it home, so you can understand that.

After finishing 20th and two laps down, his F1 career will only get better from here. That's not just because the result was so weak on paper but because the glimpses of his true potential throughout qualifying and the grand prix were there too. **\- SMM**

## Lawson is almost undroppable now

It seems absurd to think a driver who has just won F1's midfield fight for the fifth successive weekend - this time while running as high as second - doesn't have a seat for 2027 with just three rounds to go.

But that is the situation Liam Lawson finds himself in, with Red Bull deciding which two out of him, Arvid Lindblad and Nikola Tsolov should get Racing Bulls seats next year.

The Race understands Lawson is closing in on [retaining his seat](https://www.the-race.com/formula-1/liam-lawson-closing-on-f1-2027-racing-bulls-stay/) and a big reason for that is how his recent performances are making him almost undroppable.

It would be borderline unprecedented for such a high-performing midfield driver to lose their seat - the only recent comparison really being Sergio Perez losing his Racing Point seat for 2021, ironically before being picked up by Red Bull.

This would be a different conversation were it happening earlier in the season, when rookie Lindblad was on fairly even terms with Lawson.

Lawson has pulled clear in the intra-team fight in recent weekends, with Lindblad - who is expected to stay on - admitting on Thursday in Brazil: "I lost my rhythm a little bit after sort of Madrid and Baku \[in September\]."

The pressure has been on Lawson. His future might be looking very different had he not performed in the Austin/Mexico/Brazil triple-header.

Instead, he's ensured that Red Bull dropping him would be a very awkward look, so it now looks likely to announce a Lawson extension before Las Vegas. **\- Josh Suttill**

## Ferraris can behave when it doesn't matter

Fred Vasseur loves to go from a jokey comment and a big laugh to "no, but seriously", so you'd have half expected him to make a gag about Charles Leclerc and Lewis Hamilton racing each other over lowly positions in this grand prix.

It followed their silly incident in Mexico that cost the team a 1-2 and led to a full week of scrutiny for team principal Vasseur and Ferrari: whether the drivers could be trusted, how they race each other, how he handles it, how the meetings went, how they responded to those meetings and so on.

Instead, Vasseur was pretty blunt that you can't compare the two situations. One was a fight for the win, and this one was for a nothing position.

It would have been an absolute disaster for Ferrari if, in conditions this tough where it's very easy to make a mistake, those wheel-to-wheel moments between Hamilton and Leclerc hadn't been handled with care and respect and had ended in a clumsy collision.

The futility of the situation was noted by Leclerc, though, who said: "Lewis was much faster than me, so at that time there was no point for me to fight."

The bigger concern was lack of pace - or perhaps the swings between occasionally being very fast, then struggling. Grid penalties always limited Ferrari's likeliest outcome but Verstappen and Red Bull proved this was no barrier to a mega result if you had the car for it, and Ferrari ultimately didn't.

Leclerc finished seventh from 14th on the grid and Hamilton ninth from 20th. So this was a very disappointing grand prix, especially after a run of really strong races, especially in the dry. **\- SMM**

## Alpine's car is 'broken' in the wet

Pierre Gasly described Alpine's F1 car as broken when it rains. This was a really poor result for Alpine, which suffered an embarrassing double Q1 exit on Saturday (17th and 18th) and never looked likely to make amends on Sunday. Colapinto and Gasly finished 13th and 14th, a lap down.

A few midfield teams did cash in on the conditions, but this wasn't like a few years ago, when Alpine had that miraculous double podium that transformed its end-of-season result. So it's not that a massive result was there for the taking. It's that whatever was on the table, Alpine was nowhere near it.

On Friday, Alpine managing director Steve Nielsen had pointed out how wasteful the team has been this year, and here could be seen as another immediate example. But it seemed to come down to a total lack of performance in the wet rather than anything else.

"It just feels like something is not right on the car, it's broken whenever it starts raining," Gasly said. "Aerodynamically, the car was doing some very odd stuff."

The race came alive for Alpine once the track dried. At certain moments Franco Colapinto was absolutely flying, for example when he had just pitted for fresher tyres before the rain came back. So it was possible for the drivers to feel confident in this car, and it was possible that the car had really good midfield pace in it. But it seemed to need a dry track and soft tyres for that to happen.

So a particular weakness in the car may have been exposed by all the wet running across Saturday and Sunday. Or maybe Alpine just got something wrong in how it set up or ran the car this weekend, and the wet conditions made it worse.

When you think back to how strongly this season started, this weekend was probably Alpine's performance low point in how it has all fallen away since then. **\- SMM**

## Where intermediate/wet tyres are worse in 2026

F1 ticked an important box as its first proper rain-hit weekend of 2026 proved that the current cars and tyres can run in fully wet conditions.

After years where F1 has shied away from track action in extreme weather, qualifying on Saturday pointed to a different scenario with the new cars allowing a perhaps more punchy FIA to unleash cars during heavier rain.

On top of that, early-season fears of the 2026 challengers being undriveable on the inters appeared to be unfounded as the race passed without any major dramas amid the changeable conditions.

But that's not to say that drivers were totally happy, with Williams's Carlos Sainz suggesting after the race that the wet tyres were "not good enough" right now.

The main complaint is a lack of grip and a difficulty in firing the inters up, which do not feel as grippy as last year.

The trigger for that feeling is actually a move forced on Pirelli by the 2026 rules. It has had to make the inter construction stiffer - which is not ideal for a rain tyre - because of the impact F1's straight mode has, with the extra forces exerted on the cars.

The good news for drivers though is that Pirelli has already done a lot of development of the wet rubber and the warm-up issues will be improved with a new intermediate tyre design coming for 2027\. **\- Jon Noble**

## Aston Martin 'phenomenal' - but more Honda woe

There was no heroic points finish for Fernando Alonso in this race. In fact, his chance of one probably disappeared on the first lap. He seemed to follow Ollie Bearman in twitching, understeering and aquaplaning his way onto the Turn 3 runoff, and dropped from eighth on the grid to 12th on the opening lap.

But in true Alonso fashion, he gritted his way through battles with faster cars and handled the conditions well to stay close to the top 10 for as long as possible. All to finish 12th.

"Obviously I'm still missing a lot of straightline speed and that's difficult to compensate," Alonso said.

"But at one point we had some kind of fight with the Ferraris at the beginning and even at the end with the Mercedes.

"So, taking into account that we lose a lot on straights, that means that the car was phenomenal."

This is obviously not the first time there's been a gap between what the chassis can do and what the engine is suffering from. So we certainly wouldn't frame this as Alonso revealing that the car is much better than the engine, because that is very well established - and the wet conditions mitigated much of Honda's deficit.

There was a hint in Alonso's remarks that Honda had cost Aston Martin its last chance of him simply forcing his way into the points by making the most of a situation where the car was really good, and better than most, if not all, of the midfield.

And worse than the lack of performance is fresh woe for Honda on the reliability side. Lance Stroll had battery problems on both Saturday and Sunday, and Honda doesn't yet know the root cause.

That has given Aston Martin five DNFs out of six attempts over this triple-header. **\- SMM**