About Interlagos
The Autódromo José Carlos Pace, better known as Interlagos, is a motorsport circuit located in the city of São Paulo, in the neighborhood of Interlagos. It is named after Brazilian Formula One driver Carlos Pace, who died in a plane crash in 1977. The track has hosted the Formula One Brazilian Grand Prix and lately the São Paulo Grand Prix.
Interlagos is one of the few counter-clockwise circuits on the calendar. It is famous for its undulating layout and unpredictable weather, which has decided several world championships in dramatic fashion. The long uphill drag to the finish line rewards engine power, while the twisty infield section demands mechanical grip.
The atmosphere at Interlagos is electric, with passionate Brazilian fans filling the grandstands. The "Senna S" at the start of the lap is a legendary sequence of corners that drops downhill. The track's layout encourages overtaking, particularly into Turn 1, ensuring that races here are rarely dull.
The circuit is owned by the Municipality of São Paulo and managed under a long-term concession by Grupo Mobil Brasil, a private consortium of the Brazilian oil-services conglomerate Ecorodovias, which took over operations in November 2020 after the previous concession held by the Interlagos Circuit Company expired amid corruption investigations. The current F1 hosting agreement runs until 2030 following a five-year extension announced in June 2022. The land itself, some 900 metres above sea level in the São Paulo southern periphery, was originally purchased in 1926 by real-estate developers Louis Romero Sanson and Alfredo Dumont Villares who imagined it as a garden city on the American model; the racing use began only in 1940 when the developers went bankrupt and the property passed to the municipality.