Lando Norris won a rain-affected São Paulo Grand Prix from pole position on Sunday, leading 47 of the race’s 71 laps at Interlagos to claim his third victory of the season and his second in a row in Brazil.
The McLaren driver, the 2025 world champion, finished 14.6 seconds clear of Red Bull’s Max Verstappen, who produced another of his trademark Interlagos recoveries. Verstappen climbed from 21st on the grid after a 30-place penalty for power-unit changes, slicing through the field in the early laps before settling into second. His team-mate Isack Hadjar completed the podium in third, the Frenchman’s third top-three finish in his first season with Red Bull.
Mercedes sealed the constructors’ championship with the result, their ninth title and their first since 2021, completing a title double a week after 20-year-old Kimi Antonelli became the youngest drivers’ champion in Mexico. George Russell finished fourth and Antonelli fifth, despite both drivers spinning in the tricky conditions, and that was more than enough: Mercedes needed only three points more than Ferrari to clinch the crown, and the Italian team never threatened, with Charles Leclerc seventh and Lewis Hamilton ninth.
The race started and ended in rain, with the track swinging between wet and dry and drivers repeatedly rethinking their tyre choices. Remarkably for such conditions, the 71 laps ran without a single safety car or red flag, so every position change came under green-flag racing. Norris pitted a lap earlier than Antonelli for slick tyres, cutting a seven-second gap and forcing the Mercedes driver into a spin at Turn 1, and from there he controlled the race, switching back to intermediate tyres for the closing laps as the rain returned. Brazil footballer Neymar waved the chequered flag.
“It was a very tough race, very, very tough,” Norris said afterwards. It was his 14th career victory and his 50th podium, and McLaren’s first win since the Dutch Grand Prix in August.
For Mercedes, the title is the reward for a season in which their power unit and their young champion have carried them clear of the field. Antonelli wrapped up the drivers’ crown with four races to spare in Mexico City, and the team title in São Paulo means the Silver Arrows now hold both championships with three rounds still to run.
Sources: Reuters (https://www.reuters.com/sports/formula1/norris-wins-brazil-mercedes-take-constructors-title-2026-11-08/) and Formula 1 (https://www.formula1.com/en/latest/article/sao-paulo-lowdown-all-the-key-moments-as-mercedes-secures-constructors-title-and-norris-wins-in-the-rain.2VjsvSp3rejjziq7VbVVOr).
