D0 reached Brazil with Cloud champion, Mercedes champion, Williams BOTT champion and almost nothing left that could put another trophy in anybody's hands. The settled championships stripped the finale of urgency, and the turnout followed.
It was pathetic: 13 starters, the smallest field of any D0 race held in Season 7. Before the lobby filled, chat had already moved from anticipation to whether the race should be cancelled. Dead rubbers have a habit of looking dead.
The drivers who did turn up deserve better than to have their race reduced to the empty seats. Cloud beat piastrigoat by 0.931 seconds, with Zopz another 0.382 behind. Capybara finished fourth after saying he had led 95 per cent of the race before a penalty undid his evening. The top four were covered by 3.513 seconds. What Capy's evening would have looked like if not for a silly 3s penalty.
| Pos. | Driver | Grid | Gap | Points |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Cloud | 2nd | — | 30 |
| 2 | piastrigoat | 4th | +0.931s | 23 |
| 3 | Zopz | 1st | +1.313s | 20 |
| 4 | Capybara | 3rd | +3.513s | 15 |
| 5 | Karl Verghese | 5th | +6.924s | 13 |
| 6 | Magnussen Cube | 6th | +16.610s | 11 |
| 7 | Arti Moreno | 7th | +21.302s | 9 |
| 8 | Zyrøz | 12th | +22.235s | 7 |
| 9 | Kartingtom141 | 10th | +38.234s | 5 |
| 10 | Raptorr | 13th | +55.459s | 3 |
Cloud does not need a championship incentive
Cloud had already secured his second consecutive WDC, this time in D0, but he closed Season 7 in the same place he had closed Season 6: winning at Interlagos as the champion.
Brazil was his fifth victory of the season and the 15th of his IMS career. He did not take pole and, by Capybara's account, did not lead most of the race. He took the part which survives in the history book.
The drivers greeted the outcome with weary familiarity. Wadz's first guess was simply “Cloud won”; when Cloud asked if the edited message mentioned someone else, the answer was: “It was you my friend. It is always you.” Piastrigoat was more direct: “why are you so good”. At some point, analysis gives way to occupational hazard.
Capybara leads almost everything except the last line
Capybara's summary was painfully concise: “I fucked myself with the pen”, followed by “Led 95% of the race for that”. He had started third and finished fourth, behind both Cloud and his Red Bull team-mate Zopz.
That makes his result the proper counterweight to another Cloud victory. Cloud's record says he won; Capybara's evening says the route there was not the usual procession. A driver with only six IMS starts had most of a D0 finale in his hands and left without a podium.
There is a useful story for Season 8 in that difference. Capybara has shown he can occupy the front of a D0 race. The next task is making sure he can keep it clean so that the classification remembers it.
Piastrigoat won the battle, Zopz won the war
Zopz started Brazil 13 points ahead of piastrigoat in the fight to finish runner-up. He did what he had to do, beating Zopz to second place and taking three points out of the deficit. It was not even close to enough.
Zopz's third place closed the season on 160 points, ten ahead of piastrigoat and 25 ahead of Karl Verghese. He lost their final on-track contest and still won the larger argument.
Their fight was never merely about second place. Before Monza, Zopz framed beating piastrigoat as proof of how far he had come since looking up to him the previous season. Abu Dhabi put the benchmark behind him; Brazil kept it there.
Ferrari steals second by two points while Williams stays home
The sharpest table change came from a team which did not win the race. Ferrari entered Brazil 32 points behind Williams in the D0 constructors' standings. Piastrigoat's second place and Magnussen Cube's sixth produced exactly 34.
Williams had no starter in the classification and remained on 219 points. The D0 carousel stopped turning as the team probably made merry with their newfound glory in the BOTT. Ferrari finished on 221. Twelve rounds of D0 — including one cancelled race — ended with two points separating second from third because one team found two scorers and the other didn't care if anybody filled a seat.
Red Bull came even closer than the empty Williams seats would have liked. Zopz and Capybara combined for 35 points, taking Red Bull to 215, only four behind Williams. Ferrari took second, Williams fell to third and Red Bull finished fourth. One absent line-up, three positions separated by six points.
The front of the Brazil race proved that D0 could still entertain after its championships had ended. The lobby proved why a finale needs something alive beyond pride. Thirteen drivers turned up and gave the division a close finish; the pathetic part was that nine more seats did not.
The championship had run out of jeopardy, the grid had run out of people, but Cloud will never run out of wins.
.webp)
