Max Verstappen quickly picked off pole sitter Lando Norris to claim the lead of Saturday's Sao Paulo Sprint, and the Red Bull finished the race more than four seconds clear of the McLaren after 24 laps.
His team mate Sergio Perez gained valuable points coming home in third ahead of George Russell, but Lewis Hamilton dropped to seventh after being passed by Charles Leclerc and Yuki Tsunoda in the closing laps.
It was a surprisingly clean race with no major incidents despite some close and entertaining racing throughout. All 20 cars that lined up on the grid made it to the finish.
Saturday's Sprint race saw Lando Norris on pole position for McLaren ahead of the Red Bull drivers Max Verstappen and Sergio Perez who were followed in turn by Mercedes team mates George Russell and Lewis Hamilton. AlphaTauri's Yuki Tsunoda was sixth ahead of Charles Leclerc after Ferrari essentially 'sacrificed' the earlier Showdown in order to hoard their scarce soft tyres.
A mediocre start for the McLaren meant Norris' spell at the front lasted no time at all before Verstappen plunged down the inside of turn 1 to take the lead of the race. Perez also initially lost out, in his case to Russell and Hamilton, with Russell quickly going on to sweep past Norris a few moments later for good measure.
Perez had steadied the ship and on lap 4 successfully retook fourth place from Hamilton, leaving him under pressure from Leclerc. Ahead of them there was a similar situation unfolding as Norris managed to snatch back second place on lap 5 after a small mistake by Russell gave him the chance to apply DRS to good effect.
Perez also seemed to have got the better of Russell in turn 1 on lap 8, only for Russell to take it back in turn 4. The Mexican patiently bided his time and sealed the deal for good with a lovely pass on lap 10 - and this time he was wise to Russell's counterattacking strategy and covered it off nicely. No returns this time for Mercedes.
Hamilton was now at the head of a train of cars headed by Leclerc, Tsunoda, Carlos Sainz, Daniel Ricciardo and Oscar Piastri. All had opted to run the 24-lap race on softs, with just the Haas cars going for mediums to offset their persistent problem with heavy tyre used. It hadn't paid off, and both Kevin Magnussen and Nico Hulkenberg were quickly eaten up by the soft-shot runners and found themselves jousting with the Alfa Romeos of Valtteri Bottas and Zhou Guanyu at the back, along with Williams' Logan Sargeant who never budged from last place.
Verstappen was maintaining a comfortable lead, out of range of DRS range of Norris, with the top two having pulled away from Perez, Russell, Hamilton and Leclerc. Tsunoda and Sainz were in the final points paying positions. Piastri managed to get the better of Ricciardo through turn 8 for ninth while Fernando Alonso breezed round the outside of Pierre Gasly for 11th on lap 15, and then set the AlphaTauri in his sights.
The pressure building up behind Hamilton needed a release, and it came on lap 21 with Leclerc taking fifth into turn 1. Hamilton tried to fight back but the Mercedes was squirming around, and instead it was Tsunoda with the advantage of having had fresher softs on which to start the race who got the opportunity to strike next time around and demote Hamilton to seventh.
Behind Sainz, te changing fortunes were also reflected by Ricciardo picking off Piastri on lap 22, leaving the McLaren under assault from Alonso. The two-time champion thought he'd pulled off a pass on the Aussie rookie only for Piastri to tough it out, and keep hold of tenth.
In the meantime, Verstappen had clinched victory in the final sprint race of the season, with the Red Bull team wall somewhat downplaying it down as a productive data-acquisition exercise for Sunday's main race. Norris was disappointed to miss out on victory again, and had to settle for second after suffering from tyre degradation in the closing laps. He was still almost ten seconds ahead of Perez, who by now had a similar margin in hand over Russell.
Leclerc, Tsunoda, Hamilton and Sainz claimed the final points with Ricciardo and Piastri just missing out. The two Astons of Alonso and Lance Stroll ended up just outside the top ten followed by the Alpines of Pierre Gasly and Esteban Ocon, with Alex Albon finishing where he had started in P15.
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