George Russell caught and passed Max Verstappen to take Mercedes’ first win of 2022 in a thrilling sprint race at the Sao Paulo Grand Prix.
Verstappen and Russell found themselves in a scrap for the lead after quickly dispensing with shock polesitter Kevin Magnussen’s Haas after two laps.
After several laps of wheel-to-wheel dicing, Russell took the lead from Verstappen just after half distance.
Verstappen eventually finished the race fourth.
The world champion also slipped behind Ferrari’s Carlos Sainz and Mercedes’ Lewis Hamilton after losing out to Russell.
It was a remarkable result at the end of a gripping race, which sets the grid for Sunday’s Grand Prix.
Not only was it Mercedes’ first win at the end of a long and difficult season, but it was the first time Verstappen had been passed and lost a race since the Austrian Grand Prix back in July.
Since then, a Red Bull driver has won all nine grands prix, eight of them going to Verstappen as he romped to a second consecutive world title.
Verstappen did complain about running over some debris – which might have damaged his car – but Russell’s pace was impressive throughout the race from the beginning.
Verstappen was the only front runner to choose the medium tyre, while everyone else in the top 10 chose softs, and there will be questions as to whether that was a mistake.
Verstappen was past Magnussen on lap three, with Russell following him through three corners later.
Given Red Bull’s pace this season, the expectation was that the Dutchman would then waltz away with the race – but that is not what happened.
Russell stuck with Verstappen, only more than a second behind for two laps, and by lap 11 of 24 the Mercedes was right with the Red Bull.
Russell attacked hard, Verstappen defending just as robustly, for three laps, as the Mercedes driver attacked into Turns One and Four looking for a way by.
He finally managed it on lap 15, when he got a run on Verstappen through the first three corners, slipstreamed his down the back straight and passed before Turn Four – in very similar fashion to the way Hamilton passed Verstappen for victory in his sensational drive in the grand prix last year.
Once Russell was into the lead, he moved away and took control of the race, and Verstappen soon came under threat from Sainz’s Ferrari.
Again Verstappen defended robustly, but Sainz was just as aggressive when he passed into Turn One with five laps to go.
Sainz ran Verstappen wide on the exit of the corner, and the Red Bull’s front wing clipped the rear tyre of the Ferrari, tearing off its end-plate.
Hamilton then passed Verstappen superbly by getting a run on him out of Turn Four and up the hill into Turn Five.
Verstappen said: “It was a bit more difficult than expected somehow. But even on the soft we wouldn’t have been fast enough, so we were clearly struggling on keeping the tyres alive, so this is something we need to try and fix for tomorrow [Sunday] even though there is not a lot you can do.
“It can’t get much worse than this. I would have finished fourth with a damaged front wing or not.”
Behind Verstappen, team-mate Perez asked Red Bull to swap positions for the extra point that would help his bid to beat Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc to second place in the drivers’ championship, but his pleas fell on deaf ears.
Leclerc, who started 10th, finished sixth behind Perez, ahead of McLaren’s Lando Norris, with Magnussen taking the final point in eighth place.
Alpine’s race fell apart after Esteban Ocon and Fernando Alonso started sixth and seventh.
Ocon pushed Alonso wide at Turn Four as the Spaniard tried to pass on lap one, damaging his front wing, and then moved very slightly again as Alonso passed down the straight at the end of the lap.
It left Alonso distinctly unimpressed and provoked some spiky radio messages, in which he made clear that he disapproved of Ocon’s driving.
The incident damaged Ocon’s sidepod, and he dropped down from sixth on the first lap to finish 18th, his car catching fire in the pit lane at the end.