Lando Norris extended his Formula 1 championship lead by winning the sprint race in Brazil and inadvertently played a part in his main rival Oscar Piastri crashing out in the process.
Piastri shunted through Turn 3 early in the sprint after running over the Turn 2 exit kerb and losing the rear as he splashed through some water. Moments later Nico Hulkenberg and Franco Colapinto crashed in the same way, in the same place.
While this could have been coincidence, it was actually a consequence of Norris running wider than normal onto the exit kerb in the first place.
Kimi Antonelli, who was running second between the two McLarens when Piastri crashed, reported over the radio that Norris “hit the kerb and a lot of water went down”.
Onboard footage from both cars shows this very clearly, as it shows Norris is almost fully across the kerb with his front left wheel - which meant his left rear wheel did the same - and on Antonelli’s onboard the spray being kicked up is very visible.
Antonelli did not go over the kerb on that lap, though, and in fact was taking care to avoid interacting with the wet kerbs in general.
"I was just trying to stay away from the kerbs during the whole race, because it was very, very tricky, especially at the beginning," Antonelli said.
"So especially when I saw him [Norris], lifting water, I tried to take a bit more care, just to avoid any spin or moments, because it was really crucial to make it tidy in order to make it through as well."
This meant Piastri was the first car after Norris to hit the kerb with water displaced more onto the surface - something George Russell who was fifth on track at the time, jokingly likened to Norris dropping a banana peel as if playing Mario Kart.
Russell called Norris the "smartest guy on the grid", although this was tongue in cheek as well, and there is obviously no indication this was intentional from Norris. But the effect was real.
Several drivers had used that exit kerb to different degrees over the first few laps. There was little consistency in the lines because the track was damp into the first corner, causing a lot of small variations through the Esses, but it was clear that the exit kerb was usable.
This is also supported by how much Norris was able to run over it without consequence, as all that did was disturb whatever water had pooled within the kerb - rather than run the tyre over it directly.
"It’s a kerb you always use, like in qualy, we use it a lot," Norris confirmed. "When it’s wet conditions like this, you want to stay off all the kerbs, so I ran a little bit wide and I saw the water come onto the track."
Immediately after Piastri’s shunt, Max Verstappen had a near-miss. The world champion essentially replicated Piastri’s line and had a huge slide that he managed to catch.
Just behind, Fernando Alonso ran his left-rear wheel fully over the exit kerb and through the water too, but avoided spinning.
Hulkenberg took a bit more kerb than Piastri so it was no surprise he suffered the same fate, while Colapinto had just gathered up a big moment into Turn 1, so seemed to be off line and potentially with a little bit of water on his tyres.
Whether simply unfortunate or guilty of not mitigating the risk as well as other drivers who did not crash, the consequence for being on the wrong side of such fine margins was obviously biggest for Piastri, who called it a "silly mistake really, or unfortunate mistake".
He not only lost a likely top-three finish in the sprint he is now nine points behind Norris in the championship instead of three, had he finished where he was running at the time of the crash.
