F1 Paddock Notebook - Brazilian GP Sunday

- In what could become the penultimate Brazilian Grand Prix at Interlagos, over 158,000 people attended the event over the weekend. That’s the record for the last 18 years, in a country that lives its second season since 1969 without a local driver. The TV audience numbers are growing, as the new stars Max Verstappen and Charles Leclerc are especially popular with the Brazilians. So, there were a lot of happy faces as Max overtook Lewis Hamilton twice to win. In the end, he couldn’t choose the best manoeuvre: “But the one round the outside was harder!”

- Before the race, Bruno Senna made a beautiful tribute driving the MP4/4 made famous by his uncle, Ayrton, for the first time at Interlagos. Marking the 25 years since Senna's passing, the family brought the trophies of his two Brazilian GP wins, the ones for the three championships, and original helmets to be shown at the track. There was a lot of emotion around when Bruno was driving at the track, with the Brazilian flag in his hand and the crowd singing their traditional “olê, olê olê olê, Senna, Senna”. Watching everything almost glued to the wall and very emotional, was Josef Leberer, Ayrton’s physio from 1988 onwards, who nowadays works for Alfa Romeo.

- “Crazy, crazy”, said Daniel Ricciardo while he watched Pierre Gasly’s celebration on the podium. He waited until the Frenchman went to the interview pen to congratulate him. Despite the first career podium, Gasly couldn’t celebrate in São Paulo. He had a flight to catch in the evening but pointed out that “although we have very good champagnes in France, they never tasted as good as this one.”

- The podium was everything Netflix needed: one of the main focuses of the second season is Gasly’s ups and downs this season. But they also joked they would probably need more than one episode to explain the crazy Brazilian Grand Prix.

- It was not a quiet afternoon for the stewards, even though Lewis Hamilton made things a bit easier by admitting his guilt in his touch with Alex Albon. He was summoned to speak to the stewards, but Mercedes sent a representative to tell the stewards he felt he deserved a penalty.

- Later on, eight drivers were caught with the DRS open while the yellow flags were waived, something pointed out by the teams themselves, but the FIA understood they slowed down and didn’t distribute penalties. That meant Carlos Sainz ended up going to podium with his team more than one hour after the chequered flag.

- At around the same time, Mattia Binotto was speaking by himself in the Ferrari press conference, which is usually also attended by both drivers. The team said they “thought it would be better” this way, which speaks volumes about the mood inside the team after Charles Leclerc and Sebastian Vettel ruined each other’s races.