Perhaps not surprisingly, towards the end of the season, Max Verstappen and Red Bull stopped looking like such an invincible force. Of course, Verstappen remains a priori the main contender for victory, but the qualification for the Mexican Grand Prix confirmed that it is possible and necessary to fight the “bulls” at the end of the season. This time the main opposing force to the “bulls” were the “stallions”. Ferrari was able to win the front row of the starting field in qualifying, which left quite a bit of interesting intrigue in the race…
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And the start was quite hot: Verstappen took advantage of the long run to the first corner, passed Sainz and caught up with Charles Leclerc. Sergio Pérez did the same on the outside trajectory in the first corner, colliding his rear wheel with Leclerc’s front wheel and performing a short flight. As a result, Leclerc broke his front wing and Perez retired completely in the first corner of his home race, leaving even more questions about his future career at Red Bull.
Verstappen confidently took the lead in the race, Leclerc held second position with a damaged car, Sainz remained third and Dan Ricciardo was fourth. The Australian, after an excellent qualifying, maintained his position at the start, also thanks to Pérez’s optimistic maneuver.
On lap 11, Lewis Hamilton was able to overtake Dan Ricciardo for fourth position, Dan’s fairy tale and his hopes of a podium finish began to fade all too soon. Norris and Tsunoda got rid of the “software” with which they started, and the situation on the track stabilized, the peloton expanded considerably.
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Ferrari has once again surpassed itself in tactics
On lap 20, Max Verstappen opened a wave of pit stops by switching to hard. At the end of the first segment, Hamilton approached Carlos Sainz, but in the end he was unable to make the same attack.
It is noteworthy that Hamilton’s rivals extended the first segment as much as possible compared to Verstappen: Hamilton was the second of the leading group to pit just five laps after Max. Verstappen dealt with Ricciardo on the track and moved ahead of Sainz, racing after Leclerc; it seemed like Ferrari even delayed their stop.
Sainz finally pitted only on lap 31 and returned to the track behind Hamilton. A lap later, Leclerc also pitted, but was still driving ahead of the Mercedes driver.
On lap 33, Kevin Magnussen lost control and literally destroyed his car: the Dane’s right rear suspension broke. A safety car appeared on the track and soon the racing management decided to hang a red flag over the track: Magnussen’s car caught fire and the barrier was severely damaged.
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Race number two
The race was stopped for almost 25 minutes. The race management announced a permanent restart, so our race was divided into two stages, NASCAR style.
Verstappen and Leclerc chose “hard” at the restart, while Hamilton finished “medium” in third position. Upon reaching the first corner, Verstappen maintained the lead, Leclerc was still second and Hamilton third. Max managed to separate himself from Leclerc and Hamilton immediately approached Leclerc.
A few laps later, Hamilton managed to take advantage of the “middle” and overtake Leclerc, moving into second position. Russell, however, was unable to quickly cope with Sainz, becoming trapped in fifth position.
The group of leaders extended along the track, only Russell continued his unsuccessful attempts to attack Sainz. On lap 47, the peloton lost Fernando Alonso: the Spaniard had technical problems and stopped in the pits.
Tsunoda, in the fight with Piastri, tried to overtake Pérez, not with such catastrophic consequences, but his car was damaged and Yuki lost many positions.
With 11 laps to go, Lando Norris with a beautiful maneuver overtook Ricciardo in the fight for sixth position, chasing Russell. And this chase was a success: George killed his “middle” behind Sainz and failed to defend fifth place.
Max Verstappen took the race to a confident victory, which became the 16th of the season and the 51st of his career. Hamilton kept the “medium” tires until the end, finishing second, while Leclerc finished third. The top five were completed by Sainz and Norris. Also in the top ten were Russell, Ricciardo, Piastri, Albon and Ocon.
The race turned out to be a true marathon and, like any marathon, it frankly tanked in terms of the amount of action. However, the Grand Prix turned out to be quite interesting. Mercedes is also clearly recovering, which can promise us an interesting stage in Brazil: at Interlagos this team was always very good. It will be interesting to see what Formula 1 brings us next week!
