Mercedes came to Interlagos needing to outscore Ferrari by three points to close the constructors' championship and outscored it by 16, on a day when both its cars spun. Kimi Antonelli went off at Turn 12 on his reconnaissance lap, took the lead from second on the grid and lost it with a spin at Turn 1 on lap 20. George Russell spun backwards at the pit exit after his lap 16 stop for slicks and lost time and positions recovering. They finished fourth and fifth, and the FIA's points document has Mercedes on 652 and Ferrari on 510, a gap of 142 with 129 still available over the last three rounds.
Lando Norris won the Sao Paulo Grand Prix on Sunday 8 November by 14.602 seconds, in 1:35:23.504 over 71 laps, with Max Verstappen second after starting 21st and Isack Hadjar third.
Seven drivers took power unit penalties, among them Verstappen, Hamilton, Leclerc and Russell, which put Liam Lawson third and Nico Hulkenberg fourth behind Norris and Antonelli. Heavy rain had held Saturday's Q1 up by almost an hour and a half, and Russell put visibility at "zero down the straight into turn four". Norris took pole in 1:27.470. The race started on intermediates, with Valtteri Bottas's Cadillac wheeled off the grid before it.
Lawson was second after the opening corners, having gone around the outside of Norris into Turn 1, and then faded as his intermediates wore on a drying track. Norris, Hadjar and Russell passed him in quick succession, and Verstappen followed after clearing Hulkenberg.
Lap 20 decided the win. Antonelli was more than eight seconds clear at one point, Sky Sports reported. Norris came in for slicks on lap 16, Antonelli a lap later, and the Mercedes rejoined a second or two in front. Antonelli told his team on lap 18 that "something is weird with the car". Two laps later he spun at Turn 1 and Norris went through.
Norris was 3.3 seconds ahead of Hadjar by lap 23 and 9.2 clear at the front by lap 38, and gave the lead up only during the second round of stops, when Hadjar and then Antonelli ran in front before making theirs. It was his third win of 2026, and his first since the Dutch Grand Prix in round 12. "I kept it cool and didn't make any mistakes and had the pace when I needed to," he said.
Hamilton took a 75-place penalty on the grid sheet and Verstappen a 30-place one, which put them 20th and 21st. After one lap Hamilton was ninth and Verstappen 13th. A Hamilton mistake let Verstappen through, Sky reported, and he was eighth by lap five. Red Bull told Hadjar to let him by for second on lap 38. He stopped again at the end of lap 45, rejoined fifth and was back in the top three by lap 53. He said he did not know whether the car had picked up damage after the first stint, but it felt "like the complete opposite I've felt the whole weekend with some really weird balance". Second from 21st was his eighth podium in a row.
Red Bull split its cars for the second stops: Hadjar stayed out after Verstappen's stop, took the lead when Norris pitted at the end of lap 49 and came in a lap later, rejoining sixth and gaining a place when Piastri stopped on lap 51. He took third, 24.485 seconds behind Norris, and the Red Bull pair scored 33 points between them.
Hamilton's 400th start, by formula1.com's count, ended ninth and a lap down, after a spin on the climb from Turn 12 when the rain returned. He had handed a place back to Oliver Bearman after a move at Turn 5 over which the stewards took no further action. At the end of lap 14 he became the first driver onto slicks, a call Motorsport Week said he had been asking Ferrari for.
Light rain was falling by lap 57 with the field on slicks, and lap times climbed as grip went. Russell was the first car on the lead lap to stop for intermediates, at the end of lap 61, and the rest followed. Norris took his with about 10 laps left and kept the lead.
Mercedes changed the order of its own cars twice in the last 15 laps. Russell moved aside for Antonelli on lap 57; then, after Russell ran an extra lap on intermediates and closed up, Antonelli was told to swap back. Russell finished 2.026 seconds ahead on the road, before a five-second penalty for Antonelli's unsafe release into the path of Franco Colapinto, a stop in which the stewards said he "momentarily lost control on the slippery surface". The penalty moved nothing: Oscar Piastri, sixth, was more than 15 seconds further back.
Leclerc took seventh from Lawson on the penultimate lap after minor contact at Turn 12 that, the stewards ruled, let him close up and pass. They called that "an obvious sporting consequence" and gave him five seconds rather than 10, citing the wet conditions and the slightness of the contact. The five seconds put Lawson back ahead of him, worth two more points to Racing Bulls and two fewer to Ferrari.
Ferrari took six points on Sunday, from Leclerc's eighth and Hamilton's ninth. It is Mercedes' ninth constructors' title and its first since the eight straight from 2014 to 2021, which Sky Sports notes draws it level with Williams in third on the all-time list. "We have taken a few years to be back at the top spot," team principal Toto Wolff said, a week after Antonelli sealed the drivers' title in Mexico City.
Five drivers now sit within 33 points for second in the drivers' table: Verstappen 279, Russell 262, Hamilton 261, Leclerc 249, Norris 246, with 75 still available to each of them. Verstappen's 18 points on Sunday took him from two ahead of Hamilton to 17 ahead of Russell. In the teams' fight for third, Red Bull lead McLaren 415 to 398, unchanged at 17 after both scored 33 on Sunday.
Las Vegas is next, on 21 November, with Qatar and Abu Dhabi to follow.