The biggest winners of the F1 Sprint at the São Paulo Grand Prix

Perhaps the biggest winners in Formula 1’s Sprint race on Saturday at the São Paulo Grand Prix?

Those of us who got to watch.

While the 2023 F1 season has been a rather formulaic affair, with the field trying to chase down Max Verstappen week after week, there have been fascinating battles playing out behind him. But Saturday’s F1 Sprint race at the São Paulo Grand Prix might have offered the most thrilling battles behind Verstappen of the entire season.

The best sequence of the afternoon might have been the battle for the final point on offer for the F1 Sprint race, as Carlos Sainz Jr., Oscar Piastri, Daniel Ricciardo, Fernando Alonso, Lance Stroll, and Pierre Gasly fought among each other for that eighth-place finish, and the final point available.

But that was not the only fight, as we were treated to a battle between Lewis Hamilton and Yuki Tsunoda for sixth place.

We’ll now sort out the winners and losers on the track, but on this day, we were all winners.

It sounds odd to say, but if there was a weakness from Verstappen this season it was to be found at the start of races. Perhaps in the back of his mind Verstappen knew the combination of the RB19, and his own ability as a driver, meant he did not need to take big risks at the start.

However, over the past two weeks we have seen Verstappen take off like a rocket when the lights went out. Verstappen rode two incredible starts — first at the start of the race and then on a late-lap restart — to victory last weekend at the Mexico City Grand Prix.

We saw again Verstappen rocket off the line when the lights went out in Saturday’s F1 Sprint race. Verstappen was starting in second place, but took the lead from Lando Norris early on the first lap, and did not look back.

Those starts are something the team, and Verstappen, have been working on. It seems the work is paying off.

“It was important to try and get ahead at the start ... the second part of the start was very good,” said Verstappen following the race. “I think we managed the race quite well.”

Quite well indeed.

Imagine saying this sentence a few weeks ago:

Yuki Tsunoda was locked in a battle with Lewis Hamilton, and came out the winner.

In the late stages of the F1 Sprint race Saturday you could see the two Mercedes drivers — Hamilton and George Russell — start to fade. After both got out to quick starts on their soft tires, it seemed they were dealing with some degradation issues. That opened the door for others to chase them down, including Tsunoda, who came out on top in that fight for a sixth-place finish.

As we noted following the F1 Sprint Shootout, thankfully for Aston Martin the big points are handed out on Sunday.

Because Saturday was a big departure from what we saw from Lance Stroll and Fernando Alonso on Friday.

The two managed to lock out the second row for Sunday’s Grand Prix, with Stroll set to start third and Alonso fourth. But Saturday was a much different story. Stroll failed to advance out of SQ1 earlier today, and while Alonso was on track to participate in SQ2, a late collision with Esteban Ocon at the end of SQ1 left him watching the rest of qualifying along with us.

Both drivers threatened to get into the points, but in the end a brilliant bit of defending from Carlos Sainz Jr. kept those other contenders in his rear-view mirror, Stroll and Alonso included.

In the scrap between Sergio Pérez and Hamilton for second place in the Drivers’ Championship, today was a good day for Pérez.

The Red Bull driver took home a third-place finish on Saturday, adding six more points to his season total. With Hamilton force to settle for a P7 — and two points on his end — Pérez inched four more points head of his Mercedes rival in this fight.

The bigger points are on offer tomorrow, and Hamilton will start ahead of Pérez when things get underway on Sunday, but today’s finish showed that Pérez might still have the advantage both on a micro level, and the macro.

Similar to Aston Martin, this was a Saturday to forget for Alpine.

The F1 Sprint Shootout was a rough one for Esteban Ocon, whose collision with Alonso in the late stages of SQ1 knocked him out of qualifying, and forced the team to work extra to get his A523 ready for the F1 Sprint Shootout.

However, he managed to pick up just a few spots on the track, and settled for a 14th-place finish.

As for Gasly, he was in the middle of the six-way fight for eighth place, but eventually his tires simply suffered too much degradation, and he slid back through the field. Gasly ended up finishing just in front of his teammate, down in P13.

Why is the eighth-place finisher considered one of the winners?

Because when you come out on top of a six-way clash for the final point on the day, you’ve done some impressive driving.

Around midway through the F1 Sprint race Sainz was locked in a six-way fight for that final spot, and while he was running in eighth, he had five drivers behind him coming for that point. A few times Ricciardo even managed to pass him, but Sainz kept his cool, and kept coming back.

Ultimately, the Ferrari driver’s masterful job of defense took home an extra point for Ferrari. And in their battle with Mercedes, every single point counts.