This weekend’s 21st round of the Formula 1 World Championship sees the drivers battle it out at Interlagos for the Sao Paulo Grand Prix and it’s all to play for on track and in the standings. But coming out on top in both the Sprint and the Grand Prix will be far from simple as the teams will be forced to get to grips with several unknowns over just a single hour of practice…

Similarly to the previous two tracks of this American triple header, Interlagos has received new asphalt. But in contrast to Austin and Mexico City which were only resurfaced in sections, the entirety of the Sao Paulo circuit has been resurfaced, including the pit lane.

This work only began around a month ago and has been completed very recently, and the asphalt has since been cleaned using a high pressure water system to remove the sheen usually seen on new bitumen. While this should have increased the circuit’s grip and reduced lap times, Pirelli suggest its abrasiveness has also increased which will impact the tyres.

Pirelli have opted to bring their softest possible compound range to Brazil – the C3 as the hard, C4 as the medium, and C5 as the soft. This is one step softer than last year putting extra pressure on the one and only practice session for data gathering as the teams can rely much less on last year’s to fill in any knowledge gaps.

While the Sprint format throws up unknowns when it comes to data gathering, there is some relief in the form of the Sprint itself. The 100km race and its separate parc ferme allows the teams to fine tune their setups based on this long-run, usually on medium tyres, and make any changes accordingly between the Sprint and qualifying, before their cars are locked into a second parc ferme.

We saw this work well for some in Austin, but it can also cause problems for those who lack confidence in their setup direction with no practice between these sessions to test any changes they make.

An additional factor for the engineers to consider is the weather, with rain predicted on all three days of on track running. Saturday’s Sprint and Qualifying is the most likely to be affected, with a 50% chance of precipitation, while Friday’s is 20% and Sunday’s is 30%. Sao Paulo is no stranger to wet races, but if this is to be the case then plans for fine tuning setups between sessions will go out the window, with knowledge from a potentially wet Sprint being useless for a potentially dry Grand Prix.

But for all the headaches this could cause for the teams, the possibility of rain no doubt adds to the jeopardy of the on track action – with it being the reason we got an incredible first Pole position for Kevin Magnussen in 2022, and a thrilling qualifying hour a year later that provided some now iconic images.

These unknowns will only serve to complicate an already complex Sprint format weekend, and with more to balance there’s more of an edge to be found for the team who gets it right, making the weekend all the more exciting as the title fights rage on…