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Saturday, November 12 2022
Red Bull's quest for more records; Ricciardo seeks back-to-back big results: Sao Paulo GP burning questions

The final fortnight of Formula 1 is upon us, but there’s no time to relax for Red Bull Racing with a couple of important achievements still in sight.

RBR has turned a shaky start to the year into a season for the ages, and while the team and Max Verstappen have already set some new benchmarks for domination, there’s still more to achieve.

Verstappen took the overall record for most wins in a season with his 14th victory last time out in Mexico City.

Had it not been for his slip-up in Singapore, he’d have also equalled the record for nine wins in succession. If he wins the final two of the season, he’ll end 2022 with five victories in a row and a chance to tackle that record next year.

Red Bull Racing is on track to equal the record for most consecutive victories, which is set at 11 straight wins by McLaren in 1988.

RBR is on a run of nine wins since the French Grand Prix. One more would equal the record of 10 straight wins set by Mercedes (2015–16, 2016 and 2018–19) and Ferrari (2002), while back-to-back wins would give the team the equal most dominant streak of all time.

It could then break the record in Bahrain next year.

But the team’s biggest focus will be on consolidating Sergio Perez’s hold on second place in the drivers championship.

Despite the scale of Red Bull Racing’s domination at some points during its golden 2010–13 title streak, it never secured a one-two championship finish. The closest Mark Webber came to finishing second to Sebastian Vettel was in 2010, when he was beaten to the runner-up place by Fernando Alonso by 10 points.

Perez has a five-point advantage over Charles Leclerc with two races to go, and Verstappen has now explicitly said that getting his teammate to second is the team’s collective aim.

Just two races remain to get it done.

WILL VERSTAPPEN SWEEP THE 2022 SPRINT SEASON?

An extra eight points are up for grabs this weekend in the final of three sprint races for the season.

It’ll be the sixth trial of the sprint format since it was introduced last season, and while having a competitive session on all three days has been welcomed by virtually everyone in the sport, the sprint itself is still struggling to garner more than a lukewarm reception.

Drivers have pointed out there’s rarely much action in the sprint races given the few points on offer, while the threat of negatively affecting your grid spot on the more important Sunday means there’s a general lack of risk-taking during the 100-kilometre dash.

“You don’t really see a lot of overtaking unless there is a car out of position, and it’s not really that much fun for me,” Verstappen said this week.

That said, last year’s sprint in Sao Paulo was comfortable the most exciting of the five to date.

Lewis Hamilton being thrown out of qualifying for a technical breach fired up the Briton not only into an epic comeback across the weekend but also into a run of wins that drew him level on points with Verstappen for the final race.

Hamilton started the sprint last, overtook 14 cars by the finish, was demoted to 10th for the grand prix for an engine change and then charged up the order on Sunday to dominate Verstappen in the race.

This year’s sprint races, in Imola and Spielberg, have been interesting without being thrilling. Verstappen won the first after passing Leclerc late as the Ferrari’s tyres expired, and though he won the second comfortably, a strategy error from the Scuderia meant Leclerc didn’t show his maximum pace. The Monegasque went on to dominate the Sunday race.

Can anyone stop Verstappen from taking all three sprint races for the year?

CAN FERRARI BOUNCE BACK AND SECURE SECOND?

Ferrari’s declining late-season performance culminated in its worst race of the year in Mexico City, where both cars took the flag around a minute behind Verstappen as the last cars on the lead lap.

Its lacklustre second half of the year has left it vulnerable to Mercedes for second place, though the German marque has also had struggles that have left it unable to capitalise.

There’s 40 points between the two teams, and Ferrari can seal the deal by outscoring Mercedes by just four more points over the weekend.

But a bad Brazil for the Scuderia, in particular a retirement, could take the battle to Abu Dhabi.

Ferrari’s prospects this weekend are mixed.

Given its issues in Mexico City were due to the track’s extreme 2.2-kilometre altitude, the car should be significantly more competitive this weekend. On paper the circuit layout is favourable too, particularly in the second sector.

However, Sao Paulo is still a race run at altitude, with the city sitting at around 760 metres above sea level.

It’s dramatically lower than Mexico City but a similar altitude to that of the Austrian Grand Prix, where Ferrari first realised it had problems running its motor at altitude.

Sainz’s firey engine failure was due to the motor being pushed too hard by the thin air, which is around 8 per cent less dense at both venues. The turbocharger and MGU-H failed under the strain, which is why the power unit was turned down so much in Mexico.

Knowing a catastrophic failure could be lurking — and knowing that a terminal failure could force the team into a costly new power unit for the last round of the year in a cost-cap environment — could leave the Italian team playing it safe this weekend.

That in turn could give Mercedes a chance to strike, particularly if mixed conditions bring it closer to the battle at the front.

WILL THE BATTLE FOR FOURTH GO TO THE FINAL ROUND?

Alpine and McLaren are battling over such relatively small points that mathematically the fight for fourth will almost certainly go to Abu Dhabi, but whether it remains realistically alive is another question.

Enstone leads Woking by just seven points with two rounds remaining after some painful recent results for the French team, which has suffered four costly engine retirements in the last five rounds.

If the Renault power unit in the back were more reliable, the fight would probably have been long decided in Alpine’s favour.

Engine problems continue to threaten. Esteban Ocon changed engine parts as recently as in the United States, and his car subsequently encountered problems in practice in Mexico, which curtailed Jack Doohan’s FP1 running.

Alonso’s power unit then failed in the race. It’s unclear whether that will require a penalty-attracting change this weekend.

Alpine can at least feel secure that on a normal weekend it wields the faster car, but the secret ingredient in this battle could be Daniel Ricciardo.

His paltry points total this season means McLaren hasn’t been able to capitalise on its rival’s poor reliability, but his strong results in Singapore and Mexico recently have also given the team a sniff that it might yet snatch fourth at the death.

We saw Ricciardo at his ferocious best in Mexico City, even if his clash with Yuki Tsunoda threatened to sour his sensational rush to seventh. While he clearly had the race’s superior strategy, conserving tyres in the first stint to open up that path was also a little-seen Ricciardo strength. On that afternoon he was back to being the complete package.

But the fact it came only seven days after his worst result of the season in Austin speaks to how unpredictably the Australian is finding confidence in the car.

That unpredictability might be his friend in Brazil, where his record isn’t stellar. It’s one of the few tracks at which he’s yet to collect a podium, with a sole best finish of fourth. Last year he retired from the points with an engine problem.

“A sprint race is good and keeps the weekend a bit more exciting,” he wrote on his website. “I don’t love the circuit and have no idea how we’ll go.

“Hopefully there’s another good race for me in store … having back-to-back good races would be nice, because I’ve not really had that.”

Ricciardo has scored back-to-back points just once this year. A second occurrence could be pivotal in McLaren’s fight for fourth.

WHAT’S THE WEATHER DOING?

Holding the Brazilian Grand Prix on the shoulder of the wet season means the race has a reputation for rain appearing on the radar, but the actual incidence of wet grands prix in Brazil is actually fairly low.

There have been just three rain-affected races in Interlagos in the last 20 years, the most famous of which was the 2008 grand prix, when tyre strategy during a late shower set the conditions for Hamilton’s unforgettable first title.

The most recent wet race was in 2016, a crash-strewn affair at the pointy end of the fractious title battle between Mercedes teammates Hamilton and Nico Rosberg.

Rosberg had amassed enough of a lead to finish second in the final four races, and the penultimate round of the season in treacherous wet conditions — never a strength of the German — was better remembered for him attempting to hold second from a charging Verstappen.

Verstappen’s progress was partly undone by a near disaster at the last corner, where a only deft bit of car control saved his car from the fence. That moment as called by Dutch commentator Olav Mol — complete with uncensored expletives — was one of the highlights of the season and well worth a YouTube search.

The elevation changes of the track mean that water tends to run over parts of the circuit in rivers, making some corners especially treacherous while other parts of the track remain drivable. It’s what makes wet conditions here so challenging — and thrilling.

This weekend rain and storms are forecast with varying likelihood all weekend. Friday qualifying is most likely to struck by rain, but there’s more than a 50-50 chance of the sprint and the race being wet, according to forecasts at the time of writing.

With parc fermé conditions starting on Friday night with qualifying, — a day earlier than usual thanks to the sprint — it’ll be particularly challenging for teams to try to guess whether they would be better off setting up the car for the wet or gambling on dry conditions.

It will also put a fresh spotlight on Williams’s decision to field rookie Logan Sargeant during FP2 on Saturday afternoon. While no work can be done on the car in the dead-rubber session, the American will be extremely conscious that a crash just hours before the grid-setting sprint race could be very painful for the team.

HOW CAN I WATCH IT?

The 2022 São Paulo Grand Prix is live on Kayo and Fox Sports.

First practice starts at 2:30am (AEDT) on Saturday ahead of the traditional three-part qualifying at 6am, which will set the grid for the sprint.

Second practice is at 2:30am on Sunday, with the 30-minute sprint at 6:30am.

Pre-race coverage of the São Paulo Grand Prix starts at 3:30am, with lights out at 5am.

Posted by: AT 11:58 pm   |  Permalink   |  Email
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