Mark Thompson\/Getty Images<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/figure>\n\n<\/section>\nMax Verstappen took victory in Saturday’s Sao Paulo Grand Prix sprint race after taking the lead from pole-sitting Lando Norris on a descent into the first corner.<\/p>\n
The 24-lap race was the last of six sprint races this year and offered a number of exciting battles further down the order.<\/p>\n
Sprint races award points to the top eight finishers, with the winner getting eight, second place seven, third place six and so on.<\/p>\n
Verstappen, who will start from pole position in Sunday’s Grand Prix, never looked threatened after taking the lead into the first corner, while Norris also fell behind George Russell at Turn 8 after the Mercedes driver took a lightning start from fourth place on the grid.<\/p>\n
Norris reclaimed second place at Turn 1 on lap five before Russell lost the final podium spot to the second Red Bull of Sergio P\u00e9rez on lap eight.<\/p>\n
Perez started third but lost two positions in the first four corners of the race as a slow escape saw him overwhelmed by both Mercedes drivers. The under-pressure Red Bull driver overtook Lewis Hamilton for fourth place on lap four and retook third place from Russell a lap later.<\/p>\n
Mercedes, who entered the weekend confident of a good result, struggled as the race progressed, with Hamilton losing fifth place to Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc on lap 21 and sixth to a late Yuki Tsunoda inspired.<\/p>\n
Hamilton’s seventh place means he has dropped four points to Perez in their battle for second in the championship.<\/p>\n
Carlos Sainz took the last point on offer in eighth position after resisting pressure from Daniel Ricciardo throughout the race.<\/p>\n
Sunday’s Sao Paulo Grand Prix will see Verstappen start from pole position ahead of Leclerc and the two Aston Martins, who finished 11th and 12th in the sprint race.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
2023 Rolex S\u00e3o Paulo Grand Prix Race Recap\u060c Max Verstappen beat Lando Norris into Turn 1 and led to the finish. Mark Thompson\/Getty Images Max Verstappen took victory in Saturday’s Sao Paulo Grand Prix sprint race after taking the lead from pole-sitting Lando Norris on a descent into the first corner. The 24-lap race was […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[1388,2657,1451,1094,247,4591,4592],"class_list":["post-7007","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news-sports","tag-grand","tag-paulo","tag-prix","tag-race","tag-recap","tag-rolex","tag-sao"],"blocksy_meta":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wikidollar.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7007","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wikidollar.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wikidollar.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wikidollar.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wikidollar.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=7007"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/wikidollar.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7007\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wikidollar.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=7007"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wikidollar.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=7007"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wikidollar.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=7007"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}