SAO PAULO: Four-time Formula 1 champion Max Verstappen considers his race last year at Interlagos in the pouring rain — when he moved up from 17th at the start to win the Brazilian Grand Prix — to be a career highlight.
He wasn't too far from matching that feat on Sunday after starting the 2025 race in the pit lane and finishing on the podium.
Verstappen had been set for a frustrating weekend in Sao Paulo after he qualified only 16th for the race. The Dutch driver even said he had lost any chance of lifting the title this season. But then his team spent Saturday night making sweeping changes to his car, including a new engine.
All that effort paid off and kept alive Verstappen's long shot this year at a fifth title. His surprising third place put him on 341 points in the drivers' championship. With three races left, he's 49 points behind overall leader Lando Norris, who won the Brazilian GP. Norris has a 24-point advantage over McLaren teammate Oscar Piastri in second place.
Verstappen said it could have been much worse.
"To be in the podium from the pit lane, I didn't expect at all," Verstappen said at a press conference after the race. "No idea (what will happen in the final three races). Impossible to know."
Verstappen's chances almost vanished Sunday when he was already in 13th position and had a puncture, which forced him to make a fourth pit stop, unlike most of his rivals.
But his newer soft tires in the final stint of the race made Verstappen even faster, which allowed him to overtake Mercedes' George Russell for third place and challenge Kimi Antonelli for second. The Italian rookie managed to keep his position.
Verstappen moves on to the Las Vegas Grand Prix, where he finished fifth last year which was enough to clinch his fourth straight title.
"I think for us now to the end it is trying to just have these highlights, have good race weekends and see what we can do to the end," he said. "We also still want to analyze from the whole weekend, but at least the race was very promising."