The 2017 Brazilian Grand Prix (formally known as the Formula 1 Grande Prêmio Heineken do Brasil 2017) was a Formula One motor race held on 12 November 2017 at the Autódromo José Carlos Pace in the Interlagos neighborhood of São Paulo, Brazil. The race was the nineteenth and penultimate round of the 2017 FIA Formula One World Championship and marked the forty-sixth running of the Brazilian Grand Prix, the forty-fifth time that the race had been run as a World Championship event since the inaugural season in , and the thirty-fourth World Championship event to be held at Interlagos. Mercedes driver Valtteri Bottas started from pole position with Ferrari's Sebastian Vettel and Kimi Räikkönen behind, after World Champion Lewis Hamilton crashed out of qualifying early and started from the pit lane. Vettel overtook Bottas on the first corner, after which he set the pace through most of the race. Vettel won the Grand Prix, followed by Bottas and Räikkönen. Hamilton eventually climbed to fourth, closing to less than one second of a podium finish. Report Free practice The three free practice session demonstrated very tight competition between Ferrari and Mercedes. In first and second free practice, Lewis Hamilton was quickest, with both Ferraris and both Red Bulls within one second. Felipe Massa and Fernando Alonso were notably strong in these sessions. In the third session, the order was similar. However, Valtteri Bottas pipped Hamilton's best time by three thousands of a second; and neither Max Verstappen nor Massa put in a strong lap. In the final practice round, less than a tenth of a second separated the two Mercedes and two Ferraris. The first practice session saw George Russell's Formula One debut appearance. There was also an unusual appearance of a test driver (Antonio Giovinazzi) in the second practice session (usually, any test drivers that participate in a racing weekend, do so in the first practice session). Qualifying Qualifying began in a dramatic fashion as World Champion Hamilton lost the back end of the car with over-steer, seemingly due to a driver error, crashing to retire from Q1 without setting a lap time. Räikkönen was fastest in Q1 and Vettel in Q2. In the final qualifying session, however, Bottas took pole position. Vettel qualified a close second, followed by Räikkönen, Verstappen and Daniel Ricciardo. Ricciardo took a 10-place grid penalty for exceeding his quota of power unit components and started