Sao Paulo Grand Prix: Six iconic Interlagos moments, including Ayton Senna, Lewis Hamilton and Max Verstappen

Formula 1 returns to the legendary Interlagos Circuit on the outskirts of Sao Paulo, Brazil, in part three of the triple header across the Americas, and even if they are tired, the teams and drivers will be arriving with a bounce in their step and smile on their face.

Why the optimism, we hear you ask?

Sao Paulo has a knack for delivering surprises, shocks and a sprinkle of that Senna magic.

We looked back at seven of our favourite moments from one of F1’s best Grand Prix.

1991: There was only one Senna

Sport is an integral part of Brazil’s culture, and while football and Pele are No. 1, F1 and Ayton Senna are a close second in terms of legacy.

To say that Senna was special would be an understatement – a hero on and off the track, he was more than capable of winning more than the three world drivers championships were it not for his tragic death at Imola in 1994.

Despite being the home favourite, even Senna struggled to tame the beast that is Interlagos, where anything can happen, and it usually does.

By 1991, Senna was in his eighth season, looking for his first victory at home despite already being a two-time F1 champion.

He qualified on pole position, and it looked like he’d finally do it the easy way as he pulled out a lead.

But Senna – as you sense with Lewis Hamilton in this era of F1 – never did things the easy way.

His McLaren’s gearbox had jammed, and he was stuck in sixth gear, taking the Brazilian to a new level of difficulty in an era with no power steering, which massively increases the exertion on the driver’s upper body.

In 2023, a driver would usually have retired the car, and it was the same situation on this day.

But Senna is not usual – while he wanted to stop, his desire to win the race and raise the flag for his people gave him a hero-like inner strength to take him to the chequered flag.

When he got the job done, the relief and emotion came flooding through on the radio in the form of screams, audible sobbing and the words “I can’t believe it”.

Before he could return to the pit lane to celebrate, Senna passed out at the wheel due to the immense muscle spasms.

While he could not find the strength to eventually lift the trophy, he could raise the Brazilian flag to the delight of his fans – “there could only be one result”, said Senna following the race.

2008: Magnanimous Massa loses out to last-gasp Lewis

Brazil’s hopes of championship success returned when Felipe Massa headed into the 2008 finale needing to win the race with his rival Lewis Hamilton in sixth position or lower – a challenging task – but the home crowd believed.

They especially believed having seen Ferrari’s other driver Kimi Raikkonen beat title rival Hamilton a year earlier.

On the day, Massa did everything he needed to do, winning the Grand Prix in perhaps his most dominant performance – but sometimes even a heroic drive is not enough in F1.

The Interlagos Circuit has a microclimate, allowing rain showers to arrive unexpectedly.
On this day in 2008, a downpour of rain came with just a handful of laps to go.

A young Sebastian Vettel overtook Hamilton for fifth place, putting Massa on course to be champion.

The home crowd erupted.

They thought their driver had done it.

However, another young German called Timo Glock had elected to continue on his dry tyres on the wet track while others had pitted – a risk that nearly paid off.

In a frantic finish matched only by Abu Dhabi 2021, in the final corner of the last lap of the final race, Hamilton took the position he needed to become champion.

Massa, Ferrari and the Brazilian fans thought they had won, but they were wrong.

The news filtered through, and despite losing out, a hurting Massa put on a brave front, sharing love with his people, beating his heart and pointing to the fans.

A genuinely gracious gentleman had become an eternal hero in his city despite losing on the day.

The McLaren garage, on the other hand, were breathless, bouncing around as they had snatched victory from the jaws of defeat at a track where they had lost out in gut-wrenching fashion just a year earlier.

Hamilton and team Woking were the away team, and looked to have lost out, but in the against-all-odds fashion that we have become used to in Hamilton’s career, he had become the youngest-ever world champion (at the time).

The first of many titles for the now honourary Brazilian.

2012: Vettel matches Senna – the hard way

While 2008 was a fight for two drivers’ first, 2012 saw the titans of Fernando Alonso and Sebastian Vettel take one another on to become a triple world champion.

Becoming a triple world champion in Brazil is extra special – this is the number of titles Ayrton Senna managed.

And irony would strike when Vettel was tagged by Senna’s nephew, Bruno, on the first corner, leaving the German, who was leading the championship by 13 points, facing the wrong way and last.

Things got even better for Alonso when he slipped past team-mate Felipe Massa and Vettel’s team-mate Mark Webber to take third position – the Spaniard was in place to win the championship.

Vettel, though, was not in the mood to give up, and despite the damage he had sustained, somehow had made his way to eighth position by lap eight.

Things were thrown up in the air again when leaders Nico Hulkenberg and Lewis Hamilton collided on the ever-slippery surface, moving Alonso into second position.

But it wasn’t enough to beat the might of Vettel, who passed his hero Michael Schumacher on his way to emulating Senna, crossing the line in tears to secure the title.

While Vettel was the winner, like 2008, it was the runner-up and his thousand-mile stare that will live on as some of F1’s most iconic content.

2016: Senna-esque through the ‘Senna S’

Max Verstappen returns to Sao Paulo this weekend for the first time since matching perhaps one of F1’s most famous triple world champions in Senna, and the Brazilian Grand Prix in 2016 rubber-stamped just how special a talent the young Dutchman was.

This race came towards the end of the third and final episode of the Silver Arrows’ internal tussle between Hamilton and Nico Rosberg.

The race began beneath the safety car due to some of Sao Paulo’s spectacular rain – but six laps later, conditions were deemed safe enough to get under way.

Hamilton led away from lights to flag, keeping his title chances alive. While this was an impressive drive, Verstappen had all of the attention.

First, the 19-year-old pulled off a daring move up the inside of Kimi Raikkonen into the first corner, finding grip that other great drivers, including Raikkonen and Vettel, could not.

This was exemplified again as Verstappen moved into second position with a jaw-dropping move around the outside of the eventual 2016 champion Rosberg.

The youngster showed his inexperience and raw talent in a flash when it came to lap 38 – his car looked as though it was destined for the barriers, but Verstappen’s supreme car control allowed him to do what the experienced, local Massa could not.

Massa crashed out of what he thought would be his final Grand Prix, leading to an emotional walk back to the pit lane, greeted with applause from the Mercedes and Ferrari garages before reaching the arms of his wife in the paddock – while it had been raining hard, this was a moment which ensured no dry eye.

Back on track, Verstappen pitted for fresh tyres, dropping to the lower reaches of the points.

That gave us the gift of watching him fight back, including an uncompromising move on Vettel, which we have become accustomed to.

Hamilton had finally won in Brazil – an emotional moment for him as a fan of Senna – but Verstappen’s drive had captured F1’s attention, and he has only improved since.

2021: The villain becomes the hero

Formula 1 arrived at Sao Paulo with Lewis Hamilton needing some magic – Verstappen had reached the moment in the battle where another win would seriously dent Hamilton’s title defence.

In short, Hamilton needed to win, but this was at a circuit where the fans had good reason to think of him as the pantomime villain.

This was the season that had everything, including, for the first time, Sprint weekends, and in the other two weekends, Hamilton and Verstappen had come together in major flashpoints.

But this was something the Mercedes driver could not afford.

Things looked to be going swimmingly as Hamilton dominated Friday’s only practice session before qualifying comfortably on pole position by almost half a second for Saturday’s Sprint.

But this is F1, so things could hardly go the easy way – the sport’s governing body, the FIA, discovered that Hamilton’s rear wing had broken and his DRS (drag reduction system) had opened 0.2mm wider than was legal, so he was disqualified and sent to the back of the grid.

Anything can happen in Brazil, but nobody would have predicted the sort of comeback Hamilton would need to produce – this would need to be Senna-like if he wanted to keep his championship alive.

The seven-time champion wasted no time in Saturday’s Sprint, slicing through the field to take fifth position, meaning he could start 10th in Sunday’s Grand Prix after his already-scheduled five-place grid penalty.

Again, Hamilton made light work of the majority of the field, but his final target was his rival, the leader, Max Verstappen.

Verstappen made his car as wide as possible – at times, taking Hamilton off the track in what Sky Sports‘ Martin Brundle described as a ‘professional crowd’.

But like Senna, Hamilton thrives when his back is against the wall.

The Briton found a way through, boosting his championship hopes, and celebrated with the fans with parallels to Senna in 1991, with the Brazilian flag raised.

While Hamilton was dominant in 2016, 2021 was the year in which Hamilton became a legend in the Brazilian hearts – and eventually, an honorary citizen.

Another race like no other in this place like no other.

2022: A weekend of firsts

If you want proof that anything can happen in Sao Paulo, 2022 brought you a Haas pole position.

Like in 2021, qualifying for Friday set the grid for Saturday’s Sprint, which, in turn, set the starting order for Sunday’s Grand Prix.

Friday night saw a dose of challenging rain – the final session saw the top 10 drivers rushing out as the rain intensity increased, and it was Kevin Magnussen first across the line with the fastest time.

Max Verstappen was in second position on the timing screens, followed by the Mercedes’ of George Russell and Lewis Hamilton – but nobody could set a quicker time because Russell went straight on at turn four, getting stuck in the gravel.

This brought out the red flag, and when Magnusen was told of his position, the response was, “you’re kidding”, along with several expletives – similar to the reaction you would imagine from Gunther Steiner.

The Dane was on pole, and the scenes in the garage from Magnussen, who thought he was out of F1 in 2021, were something to behold.

In the Saturday Sprint, the Haas fairytale faded, but the magic of the Brazilian weekend had not ended.

This season, we have been used to the sight of Verstappen taking the lead by lap four, but when that happened in the Saturday Sprint in 2022, it was the Dutchman who then struggled.

Russell passed the Haas of Magnussen and swarmed around the back of Verstappen’s Red Bull like an angry wasp.

He was determined too – Verstappen put up a fight almost as firm as the one he had had with Hamilton a year previously – but Russell slipped through, crossing the line fine to start the Grand Prix from the front.

The Mercedes both looked quick, but it was Russell who snatched the Silver Arrows’ only opportunity to taste victory in 2022.

It was a mature drive, too – it would have been easy for the younger Brit to make a mistake with Hamilton breathing down his neck with just a handful of laps to go at a Grand Prix, which feels like and is technically Hamilton’s second home race.

It has been a year since Mercedes’ last win in F1.

It now appears to be Russell on the backfoot compared to Hamilton.

Mercedes and Russell hope they can use the positivity of last year to do their talking on the track to answer what will be many questions regarding the departure of Mike Elliott as chief technical officer.

Hamilton will also enter the weekend with victory the target – he is returning home following an excellent performance in Mexico, which his engineer Peter Bonnington referred to as feeling “like the old days”.

The immense support and the Sao Paulo magic will also help him and his team dream.

Find out what surprises are in store at this weekend’s Sao Paulo Grand Prix, live on Sky Sports F1.