A Late Collision Hands Pierre Gasly the Podium of His Career

Interlagos has a long, well-earned reputation for producing chaotic, unpredictable Grands Prix, and the 2019 edition lived up to it thoroughly. Max Verstappen controlled much of the race from the front for Red Bull, but the real drama unfolded behind him, where his Red Bull teammate Alex Albon found himself locked in a wheel-to-wheel battle for the final podium position with Lewis Hamilton's Mercedes in the closing laps.

With just a handful of laps remaining, Albon made a move around the outside of Hamilton, only for the two cars to make contact as Hamilton attempted to hold his position — sending Albon spinning into a wall and out of what had looked like a certain, well-deserved podium finish for the young Red Bull driver in only his fifth race for the senior team. Hamilton, deemed by stewards to have caused the collision, was handed a five-second time penalty after the race, dropping him further down the order once the penalty was applied.

The chaos rippled directly down the order. With Albon out and Hamilton penalized, the podium places were reshuffled dramatically, and Pierre Gasly — driving for the junior Red Bull team, Toro Rosso, in the second half of a difficult season that had seen him demoted from the senior Red Bull seat only months earlier — found himself elevated to second place at the flag, his first ever Formula 1 podium finish, delivered by circumstance as much as pure pace, but no less emotional for it.

Max Verstappen won for Red Bull, a comfortable and controlled victory that was somewhat overshadowed by the drama unfolding for the places behind him. Pierre Gasly finished second for Toro Rosso, his first career podium, an emotional result following a season that had begun with his demotion from the senior Red Bull team after a difficult first half of the year. Carlos Sainz was elevated to third for McLaren after the post-race penalties were applied, later further boosted when a technical infringement was found on another car.

Alex Albon, denied what would have been his first podium finish by the late collision, and Lewis Hamilton, penalized for causing it, both left Interlagos with considerably less than the race had appeared to be offering them in its closing laps.

By November 2019, Hamilton and Mercedes had already secured both the drivers' and constructors' championships in the preceding races, meaning the title stakes at Interlagos were minimal — a fact that arguably contributed to the freewheeling, high-risk racing that produced the late Albon-Hamilton clash, with neither driver's championship position meaningfully on the line.

Gasly's podium, while not championship-relevant, carried significant career weight — a tangible, high-profile result to close out a season that had started with the disappointment of losing his Red Bull promotion, and one that helped cement his position within the wider Red Bull driver programme heading into the following season.

Brazil in November 2019 was in the midst of a politically charged period under President Jair Bolsonaro, whose first year in office had been marked by significant controversy over environmental policy, including a sharp rise in Amazon rainforest deforestation and wildfires that had drawn international condemnation only months earlier that same year.

Interlagos itself, officially renamed in 1985 for Brazilian driver José Carlos Pace following his death in a plane crash in 1977, remained one of the most beloved circuits on the calendar among drivers and fans alike, prized for its flowing, undulating layout and a notoriously unpredictable microclimate that regularly produced dramatic, rain-influenced racing — a reputation the 2019 race, chaotic even without significant rainfall, did nothing to diminish.

Dry and warm for the majority of the race, with temperatures in the high twenties Celsius — unusually settled conditions for a circuit better known for sudden, race-altering rain showers. The chaos that defined the finish was produced entirely by driver battles rather than any weather intervention.