I've got to be honest, the Brazilian Grand Prix might be my home race but it's not my favourite race.
That's probably either Spa or Monaco. But I love undulating circuits that change throughout the course of a lap and Interlagos [officially the track's name is Autodromo Jose Carlos Pace] is one such track. It's a great track and still one of the best to drive, and it's probably in my top three tracks in the world.
As a Brazilian, you dream of racing there. Although I grew up in Sao Pa0lo, I never actually went to the track as a child.
The first time I visited it for an F1 race was for the 2003 Grand Prix, the year that Giancarlo Fisichella won for Jordan. But I remember it more for the crashes - there was a massive shunt involving Juan Pablo Montoya and Michael Schumacher, and Jenson Button also crashed out.
What I remember about the circuit from that time and also later on when I've driven is the noise. The emotion that comes out of the fans is like no other place and that's what makes it so very special.
Parts of the circuit in Brazil are fast - flat out - but there are some really technical sections to it as well and to drive there in F1 in front of my home fans will clearly be one of my career highs.
Interlagos is anti-clockwise, which already makes it different from a lot of circuits, but the big thing you notice is that it's very hard on a driver. The track is very bumpy so you're being shaken throughout the lap and, by the end of practice, qualifying or the race, I think you feel more tired here than at other circuits.
You feel the bumpiness on the opening straight, which takes you into the opening corner (2), the Senna S - named after Ayrton of course.
The key is to brake as late as possible as you go into it, as it's a good place for overtaking - the best on the track, in fact. The Senna S takes you left and then right again. It's undulating and it's also wide enough for cars to pass. If you lose your shape here, you often lose your track position as well.
You can get nearly flat out and up to sixth gear by the time of the third corner - what we Brazilians call La Curva do Sol (meaning curve of the sun), which opens to the opposite straight, the other big straight after the grandstand finish.
Then comes a double left-hand corner. The first one (4) is taken in a low gear - usually second gear - but you're up to fourth by the time you take the next one (5), and it's downhill on both of them.
There's another brief straight before the most technical part of the whole of the Interlagos circuit. It starts with a very long right-hand curve that's basically two separate turns in one.
Then comes the slowest part of the circuit, Laranjinha [literally meaning orange turn] where you're turning right (7). You pick up a bit of speed for the next turn (9), Pinheirinho - a left, before two more right turns.
The first of those is easy and you lose little speed, while the second is technically hard and is another very slow part of the circuit.
There's another left-hander that can be taken at good speed on to another straight before the Junction. That's a hard left that you really feel on your neck and your body as you bump your way around it.
Out of there, your speed picks up and you head uphill towards the finish. There's the long curve (13), which is taken fast, and two more smoother turns - well, smooth in the sense that you don't have to turn too much - before the home straight, where you hit your top speed of the whole circuit.
When you watch on the television, it looks like there's a big lean in the circuit at this point but you don't really notice it in the car. It all feels pretty flat.
As a driver, it's the noisiest part of the circuit - easily. You're driving past the main grandstand and, even with the noise of the car, you can hear the crowd going crazy.
There've been many great champions at Interlagos: Ayrton Senna, Emerson Fittipaldi and Nelson Piquet. They've all been cheered and I hope I will be too wherever I end up being in the field.
The White Lotus: Season three
Creator: Mike White
Starring: Walton Goggins, Jason Isaacs, Natasha Rothwell
Rating: 4.5/5
Key facilities
- Olympic-size swimming pool with a split bulkhead for multi-use configurations, including water polo and 50m/25m training lanes
- Premier League-standard football pitch
- 400m Olympic running track
- NBA-spec basketball court with auditorium
- 600-seat auditorium
- Spaces for historical and cultural exploration
- An elevated football field that doubles as a helipad
- Specialist robotics and science laboratories
- AR and VR-enabled learning centres
- Disruption Lab and Research Centre for developing entrepreneurial skills
Specs
Engine: Electric motor generating 54.2kWh (Cooper SE and Aceman SE), 64.6kW (Countryman All4 SE)
Power: 218hp (Cooper and Aceman), 313hp (Countryman)
Torque: 330Nm (Cooper and Aceman), 494Nm (Countryman)
On sale: Now
Price: From Dh158,000 (Cooper), Dh168,000 (Aceman), Dh190,000 (Countryman)
In numbers: PKK’s money network in Europe
Germany: PKK collectors typically bring in $18 million in cash a year – amount has trebled since 2010
Revolutionary tax: Investigators say about $2 million a year raised from ‘tax collection’ around Marseille
Extortion: Gunman convicted in 2023 of demanding $10,000 from Kurdish businessman in Stockholm
Drug trade: PKK income claimed by Turkish anti-drugs force in 2024 to be as high as $500 million a year
Denmark: PKK one of two terrorist groups along with Iranian separatists ASMLA to raise “two-digit million amounts”
Contributions: Hundreds of euros expected from typical Kurdish families and thousands from business owners
TV channel: Kurdish Roj TV accounts frozen and went bankrupt after Denmark fined it more than $1 million over PKK links in 2013
Test
Director: S Sashikanth
Cast: Nayanthara, Siddharth, Meera Jasmine, R Madhavan
Star rating: 2/5
Blackpink World Tour [Born Pink] In Cinemas
Starring: Rose, Jisoo, Jennie, Lisa
Directors: Min Geun, Oh Yoon-Dong
Rating: 3/5
Real estate tokenisation project
Dubai launched the pilot phase of its real estate tokenisation project last month.
The initiative focuses on converting real estate assets into digital tokens recorded on blockchain technology and helps in streamlining the process of buying, selling and investing, the Dubai Land Department said.
Dubai’s real estate tokenisation market is projected to reach Dh60 billion ($16.33 billion) by 2033, representing 7 per cent of the emirate’s total property transactions, according to the DLD.
Specs
Engine: Dual-motor all-wheel-drive electric
Range: Up to 610km
Power: 905hp
Torque: 985Nm
Price: From Dh439,000
Available: Now
The specs
Engine: Four electric motors, one at each wheel
Power: 579hp
Torque: 859Nm
Transmission: Single-speed automatic
Price: From Dh825,900
On sale: Now
'How To Build A Boat'
Jonathan Gornall, Simon & Schuster
How to protect yourself when air quality drops
Install an air filter in your home.
Close your windows and turn on the AC.
Shower or bath after being outside.
Wear a face mask.
Stay indoors when conditions are particularly poor.
If driving, turn your engine off when stationary.
The specs
Engine: Dual 180kW and 300kW front and rear motors
Power: 480kW
Torque: 850Nm
Transmission: Single-speed automatic
Price: From Dh359,900 ($98,000)
On sale: Now
The smuggler
Eldarir had arrived at JFK in January 2020 with three suitcases, containing goods he valued at $300, when he was directed to a search area.
Officers found 41 gold artefacts among the bags, including amulets from a funerary set which prepared the deceased for the afterlife.
Also found was a cartouche of a Ptolemaic king on a relief that was originally part of a royal building or temple.
The largest single group of items found in Eldarir’s cases were 400 shabtis, or figurines.
Khouli conviction
Khouli smuggled items into the US by making false declarations to customs about the country of origin and value of the items.
According to Immigration and Customs Enforcement, he provided “false provenances which stated that [two] Egyptian antiquities were part of a collection assembled by Khouli's father in Israel in the 1960s” when in fact “Khouli acquired the Egyptian antiquities from other dealers”.
He was sentenced to one year of probation, six months of home confinement and 200 hours of community service in 2012 after admitting buying and smuggling Egyptian antiquities, including coffins, funerary boats and limestone figures.
For sale
A number of other items said to come from the collection of Ezeldeen Taha Eldarir are currently or recently for sale.
Their provenance is described in near identical terms as the British Museum shabti: bought from Salahaddin Sirmali, "authenticated and appraised" by Hossen Rashed, then imported to the US in 1948.
- An Egyptian Mummy mask dating from 700BC-30BC, is on offer for £11,807 ($15,275) online by a seller in Mexico
- A coffin lid dating back to 664BC-332BC was offered for sale by a Colorado-based art dealer, with a starting price of $65,000
- A shabti that was on sale through a Chicago-based coin dealer, dating from 1567BC-1085BC, is up for $1,950
Countdown to Zero exhibition will show how disease can be beaten
Countdown to Zero: Defeating Disease, an international multimedia exhibition created by the American Museum of National History in collaboration with The Carter Center, will open in Abu Dhabi a month before Reaching the Last Mile.
Opening on October 15 and running until November 15, the free exhibition opens at The Galleria mall on Al Maryah Island, and has already been seen at the Jimmy Carter Presidential Library and Museum in Atlanta, the American Museum of Natural History in New York, and the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine.
The National's picks
4.35pm: Tilal Al Khalediah
5.10pm: Continous
5.45pm: Raging Torrent
6.20pm: West Acre
7pm: Flood Zone
7.40pm: Straight No Chaser
8.15pm: Romantic Warrior
8.50pm: Calandogan
9.30pm: Forever Young
THE APPRENTICE
Director: Ali Abbasi
Starring: Sebastian Stan, Maria Bakalova, Jeremy Strong
Rating: 3/5