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The 2023 F1 Brazilian GP saw Max Verstappen win his 17th race of the season. The driver kept the lead at the start of the race and even after the red flag caused by the first-lap collision of Alex Albon and Kevin Magnussen.
Verstappen kept Lando Norris at arm's length for most of the race and could keep a decent buffer in terms of lead to keep position. In P3, we had Fernando Alonso fending off Sergio Perez by just .053 seconds while P5 was Carlos Sainz.
The 2023 F1 Brazilian GP might not have had a captivating battle for the win, but the race was quite exciting overall.
On that note, what did we learn from the race? Let's take a look.
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2023 F1 Brazilian GP: What did we learn?
#1 Max Verstappen is already on a 5-race win streak
Away from the spotlight, Max Verstappen is already on a 5-race win streak after losing out in Singapore. If he wins the next race in Las Vegas, he would be on the 6th best winning streak in F1. All of this, after already having a 10-race winning streak, just shows the level at which Verstappen is performing right now.
The records have almost become a formality and not many give any attention to any of them. The driver is scripting one of the greatest seasons in the sport's history and the win in the 2023 F1 Brazilian GP will be a nice addition to it.
#2 McLaren is doing an impressive job at the front of the grid
The 2023 F1 Brazilian GP ended with Lando Norris within 10 seconds of Red Bull. It amounts to less than a tenth per lap of a gap between the two cars. It might be fair to say that the gap is probably bigger, but it shows that the car is now within reach for the team.
McLaren now has to make sure that it does not have a bad winter break where it loses ground again. If the team can keep the momentum, there might be a title fight in there somewhere.
#3 Mercedes dug themselves a deep hole at the 2023 F1 Brazilian GP
Lewis Hamilton was quick to admonish the car after the sprint race and so was Toto Wolff after Sunday. While it is questionable whether publicly criticizing the team's car design department is the right thing, the more important thing is that the team messed up its setup on Friday and paid for it throughout the week. The 2023 F1 Brazilian GP weekend saw the team dig a big hole for itself and could not find a way out of it.
#4 Charles Leclerc is correct to question why he is so unlucky
Charles Leclerc's heartfelt groan after another unlucky DNF was almost painful to watch. It was sad to see him exclaim why he is so unlucky because if we look back at the season, this has happened far too much.
The driver has lost points and podiums as well because of this. Be it bad luck, reliability, or strategic calls during the race, you can almost expect Ferrari to do something weird. The 2023 F1 Brazilian GP was just another example of the same.
#5 Fernando Alonso reminds us how elite he is
There aren't many drivers on the F1 grid who would have kept Sergio Perez behind in the 2023 F1 Brazilian GP. To add to this, there aren't many drivers who would have been able to get the place back after they lost them.
This was just a gem of a weekend from Fernando Alonso, who once again proved that if he has a good car with him, his results will get highlighted a lot more. An impressive podium from the Spaniard in Brazil.
#6 Pierre Gasly is starting to pull away at Alpine
While the complaints about his teammate at the start of the race were silly, Gasly showed how much performance he had over Ocon. The second half of the season has seen Pierre pull away some advantage over Esteban at Alpine and while the team continues to be in disarray with no team principal or technical director. The newcomer is establishing himself as the leader within the team.
#7 Yuki Tsunoda should be disappointed
A P9 is a decent result at the 2023 F1 Brazilian GP but in no way should Yuki Tsunoda be happy with that one because he could have got more. The mistake where he went onto the grass cost him big time and that's something that he cannot afford to do when he's potentially auditioning for a seat at Red Bull.
#8 Haas was just poor all weekend
Haas was the only team that started the sprint on medium tires while everyone else was on soft tires. Even then, both Nico Hulkenberg and Kevin Magnussen were the first two drivers to encounter tire wear.
The 2023 F1 Brazilian GP on Sunday was no different, as after a handful of laps at the start of the race, Hulkenberg started dropping like a stone. One has to question how much seriousness there is at Haas because this is the worst car on the grid and the team is doing nothing that shows any kind of progress.
#9 Sergio Perez wasn't good but Red Bull was brilliant
A P4 finish for Sergio Perez should not take away from the fact that the Mexican driver was almost 35 seconds behind Max Verstappen in the race. It might sound a bit brutal, but the result was not down to Perez gaining performance, but it was down to Red Bull being blisteringly quick while both Ferrari and Mercedes struggled.
Even in this scenario, Perez could not secure a podium. Red Bull would look at these results and question if Ferrari and Mercedes were in their normal form in the F1 Brazilian GP, maybe the Mexican's result would not have looked as impressive.
#10 Pirelli needs to be held accountable for its tires
You can not turn up to a race weekend and have one tire compound completely nullified. This was the case with the hard tire this weekend, as no team wanted to touch for anything meaningful throughout the 2023 F1 Brazilian GP.
Pirelli needs to be held accountable for this. The tire supplier has been part of F1 for a while and it's safe to that the quality has just not been satisfactory at all. There needs to be a better understanding and a better usability because if that isn't the case, why have three tires over a weekend, anyway?
