Verstappen breaks historic F1 record, home favourite Pérez on the podium! Who won the strategic battle in Mexico?

A strategic battle – that’s how the Mexican Grand Prix, the 20th round of this year’s Formula 1 season, could be interpreted. Max Verstappen can celebrate his victory, breaking the historic record of the queen of motorsport! Lewis Hamilton and home favourite Sergio Pérez also made the podium.

395,902 – that’s how many spectators watched the 20th Formula One race of the season, and it’s a record number of spectators at this track.

Many of them, of course, were watching the main event of the entire race weekend, the Mexican Grand Prix itself. It was Verstappen and George Russell starting from the front row, with Hamilton starting from third. You can see the full grid line-up in the post below.

Start of the Mexican Grand Prix

Despite the expectations of many fans, Verstappen held on to the top spot after all five lights went out, although it is a long way to turn one in Mexico. In fact, it is the longest distance between the start line and the first corner in the entire F1 calendar.

But he was being pressed from behind by both Mercedes. The more successful start of the Russell-Hamilton pairing was the latter, who took second place. The young British driver, on the other hand, dropped to fourth behind Mexico’s Pérez.

A poor start was recorded by Lando Norris and Valtteri Bottas, who dropped from eighth to tenth and sixth to eighth respectively. Lance Stroll, on the other hand, moved up five places after his start. The Aston Martin driver started last and after five laps was already in fifth place.

Strategic battle, important pit-stops

The next Mexican Grand Prix, however, brought more of a strategic battle than hard racing on the race track.

Nevertheless, the fans at the Autódromo Hermanos Rodríguez were able to watch thrilling and beautiful battles at the Autódromo Hermanos Rodríguez, which at times even stood up to a tougher standard. Although not to the same extent as in other races.

In any case, the duel between Pierre Gasly and the Canadian Stroll from round 14 is worth mentioning. The French rider was subsequently given a five-second time penalty by the race directors for pushing the other rider off the track.

At the front, Hamilton was trying to hold on to leader Verstappen by the skin of his teeth. It should be noted that both Mercedes were setting comparable, and in many cases better, times than the Red Bull. The Silver Arrows were even seven tenths of a second to a full second faster than the Ferrari cars, especially in the first half of the race.

The pit-stop window was opened on lap 18 by Stroll, who went for a fresh set of the softest tyres marked in red. Gradually, other drivers pitted, with the order not changing dramatically, except for the pit stops, of course.

Objectively, we have to appreciate the work of Sebastian Vettel, Alex Albon, Gasly, Fernando Alonso, Daniel Ricciardo and Kuan-yu Zhou. They all stayed on the track without stopping until the 38th and 46th lap respectively.

Vettel completed 38 laps on the soft compound, as did Albon on the Williams originally fitted with the medium compound. Gasly went for new tyres after 39 laps (also originally a medium compound). Alonso swapped from the medium spec tyres to the hard after 40 laps, while Ricciardo and Chou ran 44 and 45 laps respectively on the medium yellow set. These drivers then changed to the softest specification.

A reborn Ricciardo?

Ricciardo, it should be noted, was really happy with this tyre change and although he is no longer a Red Bull driver, but a McLaren driver, this specification almost literally “gave him wings”. On lap 51, however, the Australian’s over-effort backfired when he caused a collision with Júki Cunoda.

He subsequently retired his car due to damage to the sidewall and front suspension. Earlier on lap 42, fans watched a beautiful battle between Esteban Ocon and Bottas.

But Ricciardo set a truly furious pace and it didn’t take long for him to overtake teammate Norris.

You can then see what the Mexican Grand Prix standings looked like on lap 57, with 15 laps to go, in the attached Twitter post below.

The Australian McLaren driver received a ten-second penalty from race HQ for his fight with Cunoda, but in the end he was not to be pitied. Why?

Ricciardo got ahead of Alonso on lap 61, who was also passed by teammate Ocon, and a lap later Ricciardo also passed the Spanish legend’s teammate.

It should be added, Alonso’s Alpine suffered from technical problems related to overheating and an engine failure caused him to retire his car on lap 65. Yellow flags and a virtual safety car were commonplace.

But by lap 66, the green flags were flying again. With one lap to go in the Mexican Grand Prix, Russell went for the softest set of tyres and subsequently set the fastest lap of the race (1:20.153). One extra championship point in the bag.

The driver of the day was 33-year-old Ricciardo, as he managed to make up enough ground on eighth-placed Ocon to not lose any positions at the finish, even with the addition of a 10-second penalty.

The Mexican Grand Prix was won by Red Bull’s Verstappen, who broke the Formula 1 record for most wins in a season. The Dutch driver has 14 wins to his name, with Michael Schumacher (13 wins, 2004) and Sebastian Vettel (13 wins, 2013) the closest.

He was joined on the podium by Hamilton and Pérez. You can see the final top ten points standings in the attached Twitter post below.

Source: F1 TV