Brazilian GP highlights: Max Verstappen wins as Hamilton and Mercedes suffer nightmare | F1 | Sport

Max Verstappen cruised his way to his 18th race victory this season after winning the Brazilian Grand Prix on Sunday as the Red Bull star completed a hat-trick in Sao Paulo. The three-time world champion has reached new territory in F1 dominance after passing 500 points as he completed a comfortable F1 sprint race, pole position and race win treble.

Lando Norris was the only driver to even remotely threaten the Dutchman as he finished some eight seconds adrift to pick up his seventh podium of the season. Fernando Alonso and Sergio Perez played out an entertaining battle in the fight for the last podium spot, with the 42-year-old edging out Perez by five one-hundredths of a second at the finish line.

The safety car was deployed early on after a collision between Alex Albon and Kevin Magnussen caused debris to fall off onto the track and race control later red-flagged the race while the barrier were repaired. On the restart, Lewis Hamilton fell behind Fernando Alonso and that begun a miserable unravelling of their race strategy.

Hamilton finished in eighth while George Russell was forced to retire from the race. Fortunately for the Silver Arrows, Carlos Sainz was only fifth and Charles Leclerc did not start after crashing on the way to the grid.

With only two races to go in Las Vegas and Abu Dhabi, it promises to be a close finish between Mercedes and Ferrari in the fight for P2 in the Championship.

Catch up on the Brazilian Grand Prix as it happened with Express Sport!