Simply lovely: Verstappen wins from P17 in Sao Paulo GP masterclass

And that's (almost) all she wrote: Max Verstappen is going to win a fourth world championship after a dazzling victory from P17 in Brazil that will go down as one of the greatest wet weather drives in F1 history. Yeah, it was that good.

The Dutchman's lowly starting position was the result of a five-place grid penalty and misfortune in qualifying - shifted to 7.30am local time on Sunday after rain on Saturday made Interlagos undriveable - when a red flag knocked him out in Q2.

Verstappen was furious it had taken the stewards 40 seconds to halt the session when Fernando Alonso hit the barriers, giving his rivals precious seconds to improve while ensuring he couldn't do the same.

And with Lando Norris qualifying on pole, it looked like the title race was about to get dramatically closer.

The opposite happened. Right from the get-go Lando and McLaren had a day to forget, first incorrectly leaving the grid when the start was aborted (shout out to Lance Stroll driving straight into the gravel as though auditioning for Harry Hill's TV Burp) and second in losing the lead to Mercedes' George Russell off the line when the race finally did get underway.

Earlier on Lewis Hamilton had ventured out in Ayrton Senna's 1990 title-winning McLaren, but once the lights went out it was Verstappen who evoked the spirit of the Brazilian, making up six places on the first lap.

It wasn't long before he was stuck behind the three-car train of Yuki Tsunoda, Esteban Ocon and Charles Leclerc in third, fourth and fifth, all waiting for the right time to pit.

Or not pit. On lap 28, with the rain getting heavier and tyre tread getting shallower, Russell, Norris and a gaggle of others all pounced on a virtual safety car and boxed for fresh inters, while the likes of Ocon, Verstappen and Pierre Gasly stayed out.

They were gambling on the race being red flagged so they could effectively change their tyres for free, and moments later the risk paid off as Franco Colapinto smashed into the wall, mere hours after teammate Alex Albon had done the same. Spare a thought for the Williams mechanics (and accountants) who now have to sweat over two totalled cars.

That put Verstappen second for the restart and Norris fifth, and having gone into the race expecting to drop a tonne of points in the title race, he was now in a position to inflict a killer blow.

But not quite yet. Ocon aced the start and began to pull away, and briefly the Frenchman threatened to emerge from the chaos to take an unlikely win, as he did three years ago at the Hungarian Grand Prix.

Carlos Sainz had other ideas. Not long after the restart the Mexico City GP winner lost control of his Ferrari, bringing out the safety car and bunching up the field again.

This time Verstappen made his move. Ocon took a wide line through Turn 1 and Max outbraked him on the inside, using every ounce of his skill to find the grip, get the car turned and keep it on the island. P1. Simply lovely. If not slightly ironic given he'd had such a hard time staying between the white lines in the dry a week ago...

Meanwhile Norris had made another error, one of many small mistakes over the season that have ultimately cost him a shot at the title. At the restart he locked up and went long at Turn 1, losing another two places. For the second time in as many days, teammate Oscar Piastri generously gave one of them back and let him by. But P6 was all he could do.

That left Verstappen to cruise off into the distance, racking up fastest lap after fastest lap as he built up a lead of more than 19 seconds by the time he took the chequered flag, as Ocon and Gasly secured second and third; a result so sensational that the pair hugged after the race. Whoever said sport couldn't bring people together?

Anyway, Verstappen now leads the championship by 62 points with three races and a sprint to go, and he could draw level with Sebastian Vettel and Alain Prost as a four-time champ as early as Vegas in three weeks' time.

For all his controversial tactics and flirtations with the rulebook, in Brazil Verstappen reminded everyone what he's been unable to show since his Red Bull began to struggle in June: he is the best driver in the world, and he is going to win the world championship. Again.