An ample variety of tyre strategies involving all three compounds helped to make the Brazilian Grand Prix one of the most stunning of the season, with racing right to the finish line.

McLaren's Lando Norris took his second consecutive race win after a perfect weekend to stretch his championship lead, Mercedes driver Kimi Antonelli scored the best result of his young career with second, while driver of the day was Red Bull's Max Verstappen: who finished on the podium after starting from the pitlane.

A key factor to this action-packed race was tyre strategy in the cool and challenging conditions, with intermittent drizzly rain at the start of the day and track temperatures that never exceeded 29 degrees centigrade.

At the start, all three compounds were seen on the grid, with Antonelli in second selecting the soft tyres to try to out-drag polesitter Norris on the mediums. However, a safety car on the opening lap, subsequently followed by a virtual safety car, neutralised the action and also had the effect of reducing energy demands through the tyres at a crucial point In the race with cars full of fuel.

Verstappen, who had started on hard tyres from the pits with a fresh set up and new engine, worked his way up to the midfield before lap 10 but was forced to pit early for the medium after picking up a slow puncture on debris from the many incidents - so had his work cut out all over again.

The fight at the front of the field for most of the race was between the two McLarens, which adopted identical two stop medium-soft-medium strategies: however, Oscar Piastri's progress was blunted by a 10-second penalty for his part in the incident that brought out the virtual safety car.

Verstappen ended up taking a three stop strategy using all three compounds: racing from last to within 10 seconds of the lead at the end of the 71 laps.

While the vast majority of the drivers stopped twice, Liam Lawson (Racing Bulls) and Nico Hulkenberg (Sauber) both finished in the points with two different one-stoppers. In total, there were seven different strategy variants adopted by the 17 finishers.

Mario Isola: "Interlagos always springs surprises and delivers fantastic racing. Last year it was the rain to provide the variable that enhanced the show; this year we saw a wide variety of race strategies, which - combined with the unique characteristics of this track - encouraged even more overtaking than normal.

It was impressive to see Max Verstappen starting from the pitlane and getting onto the podium; the reigning world champion never stops amazing us. Congratulations also to young Kimi Antonelli, who managed to defend his second place bravely, and of course to Lando Norris, who sealed a great win from pole.

As we expected the soft and the medium were favoured, and a two-stop strategy was the most common. The degradation levels on the tyres, combined with some early pit stops to take advantage of the neutralisation periods at the start of the race, probably pushed the teams towards that choice, putting the emphasis on the two softer compounds.

The hard didn't really come into play, as it tended to slide a lot on a surface that had been 'reset' by the rain the morning. The pit stop windows were different for each driver, creating performance differentials that helped overtaking and gave us a great show as a result.

The only two drivers who finished the grand prix with just one stop obviously had to work their tyres harder than the others, who experienced wear and graining levels that were lower than yesterday. Nonetheless, Liam Lawson and Nico Hulkenberg showed today that a one-stopper was also a perfectly valid strategy. And it's been a long time since we saw such a wide variety of strategies using different compounds, from one to three stops, end up scoring points at the end of a dry race."