F1 Paddock Notebook - Brazilian GP Thursday

- If you were one of the 400 people who texted Lewis Hamilton to congratulate the Brit for his sixth world title, don’t worry: he is still going through the messages. Hamilton revealed his surprise when received some nice messages from a certain Fernando Alonso. “It’s nice because we have been through a lot”, said Lewis in a (finally) completed paddock at Interlagos.

- The boxes are new, and the VIP sector has a different ceiling after the last phase of the renovations, which started in 2016 and cost £170 million. But it might not be enough to keep the race at Interlagos. As things stand, Rio is the favourite to sign the contract to keep the GP in Brazil from 2021, as Liberty Media sees more financial guarantees in the project.

- Rio are offering just over $35 million per year, while São Paulo’s proposal is four times smaller. But the problem for Rio is that they still haven’t started to build the track yet, as there is some arguing about the number of trees that would be put down in the area.

- That’s why some questions were raised in the same week as F1 announced their plan to go carbon-free by 2030. The timing of the announcement was discussed because of the proximity to the Brazilian GP, but Liberty are happy that the Rio promoters have promised to replace the 150,000 trees.

- On São Paulo’s side, the promoter Tamas Rohonyi points out his experience of 30 years in the Brazilian GP - the Hungarian also operated in the Budapest race and in the Portuguese GP in the past - is the main reason why the GP should remain in Interlagos.

- Coming back to this weekend, the Ferrari drivers tried to get away from any controversy about their engines, after their straight-line speed mysteriously disappeared in Austin on the same weekend the FIA sent a technical directive to the teams setting new rules for the fuel flow. There is a massive acceleration zone from the Café corner until the Senna S in the Interlagos circuit, so it should be an interesting GP for the red team through the final sector.

- At least Sebastian Vettel seemed to be enjoying himself. He spent a few hours in Bernie Ecclestone’s coffee farm in Amparo, 130km away from São Paulo, and was very excited about the 1988 McLaren, which was driven by Martin Brundle this Thursday in Interlagos. Seb was walking around the car for a long time, and stood by the wall while Brundle was driving, probably very amused by the engine sound!

- Speaking about coffee, Valtteri Bottas said he knows how he is going to keep the good momentum after the win in Austin: using the world-famous Brazilian coffee. “I know a few good places, the only problem is the traffic in the morning!”, said last year’s Brazilian GP pole-sitter.