Early takeaways at the Brazil GP. Plus, the rise of a surprising F1 star

Prime Tire Newsletter | This is The Athletic’s twice-weekly F1 newsletter. Sign up here to receive Prime Tire directly in your inbox.

Welcome back to Prime Tire, where we’re wondering if you can fit every F1 driver into the same helmet. More on that in a bit.

It’s São Paulo Grand Prix weekend, folks. I’m Patrick, and Luke Smith’s standing by in the paddock to recap practice. Let’s dive in.

Lewis Hamilton leads Franco Colapinto during practice. (Mark Thompson/Getty Images)

What we learned from FP1 at Interlagos

This morning featured the first (and only) practice session this weekend at Interlagos, and we’ve not got too clear of a picture of which teams might be in front.

Hot temperatures, a new track surface and some struggles with bumps meant not everyone got in a quick run on the softs, leaving some question marks over the pecking order going into sprint qualifying later today.

McLaren was always set to be strong in Brazil, making Lando Norris‘ late charge to P1 no surprise. He’s ended the session almost two-tenths of a second up on George Russell, while Haas stand-in Ollie Bearman (Kevin Magnussen is ill) ended up P3 ahead of Oscar Piastri in the sister McLaren. As unclear as the order may be, that’s still a really solid showing by Bearman, who finished three-tenths up on Nico Hülkenberg in the other Haas.

Neither Max Verstappen nor Sergio Pérez completed their fast laps for Red Bull, ending up 15th and 19th, respectively. Charles Leclerc and Carlos Sainz were only sixth and seventh for Ferrari, too, and will have more to show when it matters later on.

Thanks, Luke. Other developments this morning:

Verstappen will take a five-place grid penalty for the GP after Red Bull changed to a new engine, exceeding his “pool” for the season for the second time. He leads Norris in the championship by 47 points.
As noted, Bearman replaced Magnussen in FP1 for Haas. Could this mean Bearman races in the sprint tomorrow? Luke Smith explains.
Word on the street is that Sauber is eyeing McLaren academy driver Gabriel Bortoleto for its second 2025 seat. (Bortoleto was the F3 champ in 2023 and leads the F2 championship.) McLaren says it won’t stand in the way.
In the same vein, Williams boss James Vowles confirmed the team is “exploring possibilities” for keeping Franco Colapinto on the grid next season. What exactly those possibilities are, however, remains unclear.

And here’s the schedule for the rest of the weekend. There’s a high chance of rain on Sunday. Check out our live blog here! And our track breakdown here!

São Paulo GP schedule

Day	Session	Time
Saturday	Sprint	10 a.m. ET / 7 a.m. PT / 2 pm GMT
	GP Qualifying	2 p.m ET / 11 a.m. PT / 6 pm GMT
Sunday	São Paulo GP	12 p.m ET / 9 a.m. PT / 5 pm GMT

How long will Colapinto fever last?

Colapinto has made plenty of fans (like these at the U.S. GP) in a short period of time. (Patrick Iversen/The Athletic)

I took that photo on the starting grid at the United States GP a couple of weeks ago. It wasn’t the first time Colapinto fans stood out that weekend. A few fans strolled the paddock wearing Argentina soccer jerseys. And after Friday sessions in Austin, when most fans had cleared out, Colapinto wandered to the pit wall to wave and shout happily back for a few minutes at a small group of fans calling to him from the grandstands.

He won’t have a seat at Williams next year (it belongs to Carlos Sainz), but the kid is a star. And ahead of his first “home” race in South America, we spilled some ink on the 21-year-old:

And now, back to the Brazil paddock, where Sebastian Vettel took the F1 grid inside a giant Ayrton Senna helmet? I don’t know.

Inside the Helmet with Patrick

Photoshop is my passion.

Verstappen on criticism: ‘I just do my thing’

Verstappen has been under fire for his racing aggression, which landed him two costly penalties in Mexico last weekend. On the Sky Sports F1 podcast this week, former F1 champion Damon Hill said of Verstappen that racing fairly was “not in his repertoire.”

Here’s how Verstappen responded yesterday:

💬 “I don’t listen to those individuals. I just do my thing. I’m a three-time world champion. I think I know what I’m doing.”

As someone who also criticized Verstappen in the last newsletter, I have to admit: the three-time-champion card was savvy. I can’t really argue that Verstappen probably knows more than most of his naysayers, even though concerns about his racecraft are still valid (and Hill certainly has credibility). That’s not all Verstappen had to say about his critics, though — read more here.

Outside the Points

Lewis Hamilton has two wins but is nowhere close to the championship fight with four races to go. On Thursday, Hamilton reflected on a “very turbulent” final year at Mercedes.

Shout-out to our readers for some great questions for our post-Mexico City GP mailbag. I didn’t expect the Verstappen-Schumacher comparison, but it’s good.

And, finally, give our final Origin Stories a read this weekend: On Alpine boss Oliver Oakes and the fascinating journey of Sauber’s Alessandro Alunni Bravi.

📫 Love Prime Tire? Check out The Athletic’s other newsletters.

(Photo: Rudy Carezzevoli / Getty Images)