George Rees
Max Verstappen claimed his sixteenth victory of the season last weekend in Mexico, breaking his previous record of fifteen wins in a single campaign. George Rees reviews all of the action that took place in the Mexican capital.
A fast start from Verstappen allowed him to launch his Red Bull in between the Ferraris of Charles Leclerc and Carlos Sainz, who started out in the front row with an unexpected show of pace on Saturday.
Despite Verstappen’s success, it was heartbreak for the returning hero Sergio Perez, who had a fantastic launch off the line but attempted a daring move into turn one around the outside of Leclerc.
The resulting damage to Perez’s car was substantial enough that it forced a retirement
Leclerc had Verstappen flying up the inside and was sandwiched between the Red Bulls, which led to contact between himself and Perez. The resulting damage to Perez’s car was substantial enough that it forced a retirement from the home favourite, much to the dismay of the crowd.
Daniel Ricciardo put in an exceptional performance all weekend in the upgraded Alpha Tauri, producing a stunning lap in Q3 to put his car fourth on the grid and splitting the Red Bulls in the process.
This was followed up with a strong performance on Sunday that led to him bringing home a much needed seventh position which brings Alpha Tauri from bottom of the constructors’ championship to eighth place, ahead of Haas and Alfa Romeo.
Lewis Hamilton was able to display the strong race pace of his Mercedes after what was a disappointing Saturday from the Brackley based team.
The Brit qualified sixth with teammate George Russell only managing eighth, however the seven-time world champion was able to make his way through the field, including a superb overtake on Leclerc, to claim an impressive second place and fastest lap.
With Perez retiring from the race, Hamilton has been able to cut the point gap down between himself and Perez in the drivers’ championship to just twenty points heading into the last three rounds of the season.
Norris was able to fight back and claim an impressive P5
Lando Norris delivered a superb performance in his McLaren after an extremely disappointing Saturday which saw Norris start the race in seventeenth. After completing an exceptional twenty-six overtakes throughout the race, Norris was able to fight back and claim an impressive P5 which granted him a well-earned driver of the day.
Formula 1 heads south to Brazil for the Sao Paulo Grand Prix next week for another sprint weekend.
George Rees
Featured image courtesy of Kithsiri Ekanayake via Unsplash. Image use license found here. No changes were made to this image.
In article image 1 courtesy of @f1 via Instagram. No changes were made to this image.
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