Mexico City F1 GP Review

You get a penalty! You get a penalty! You get a penalty!

Welcome to our review of the Mexico City Grand Prix. Today was a race of aggressive driving, and equally as aggressive penalties, which I will mention later.

Congratulations to Scuderia Ferrari on another weekend of masterful racing, and particularly to the outgoing Carlos Sainz. The #55 driver brought it home today after demonstrating an immense amount of racecraft after not quite being able to put things together in Austin, last time out.

Red Bull Slips in Constructors Title Fight

The World Constructors Championship saw a change at the top, with reigning constructor Red Bull slipping to third, behind Ferrari. This can be attributed to a multitude of things within the Red Bull organization, however, the most glaring factor is contractually bound to yet another year in the top team; Sergio Perez. An entirely miserable weekend for his home Grand Prix saw Checo exiting in Q1, qualifying 18th overall. This position converted to a final placement at the end of the grand prix at 17th, after 3 drivers (TSU, ALB, ALO) DNF’d. Early on in the race, Perez would pick up a 5 second penalty for a false start; later on, several clashes with VCARB rookie Liam Lawson saw Checo sustain minor damage to his sidepod. A late decision by the Red Bull pitwall had Perez pit to attempt the fastest lap, yet to no avail.

Chaos, DNF's, and Surprising Midfielders

As mentioned previously, among the drivers that DNF’d were VCARB driver Yuki Tsunoda and William’s driver Alex Albon, who collided down the front straight on lap one. This furthered Yuki's mission to never finish in the points at the Mexican Grand Prix, marking 4 years in a row. Both drivers were OK, and the race saw no further safety car deployments.

Mercedes offered up some safe, but fun team racing; all of which resulted in Hamilton becoming the lead Mercedes on lap 66. Having been practically on an island to themselves throughout the later stint, both drivers finished with points; Hamilton in 4th, Russell in 5th.

Aston Martin encountered mechanical issues on Fernando Alonso’s car, marking an early end to his Grand Prix at lap 15. Lance Stroll finished in 11th after an average performance, albeit with some good racing against Checo Perez.

William’s sole remaining driver in the race, Franco Colapinto, equaled his lowest finish at 12th after reporting steering issues later into the final stint of the race, this was not to discourage the rookie from battling to his heart’s content on track, however.

Haas had a marvelous weekend, scoring a combined 8 points between KMag’s 7th position and Hulkenberg’s 9th. Essential points in their fight with VCARB for 6th in the constructor’s championship. A high morale to lead into the final legs of the season will be just what Haas needs with a bold Lawson as their new direct competitor alongside Tsunoda in the Red Bull family.

Drivers Title Fight Gets Closer

Our World Drivers Championship is alive and well, thanks to a relatively rare set of blunders from Max Verstappen and Red Bull. Lando Norris pulled together the scraps of the weekend that was to finish second, notching yet another dent in our reigning champions lead. 

Verstappen and Norris, our two frontrunners for the WDC clashed hard today; so much so that it was reminiscent of their collision in Austria earlier this year. After the general murkiness of the interpretation regarding who’s ahead at the apex last weekend, today we saw even more evidence as to why these rules should be revisited. Verstappen ultimately received both penalties for his aggressive driving, both in forcing another driver off, and for leaving the track and gaining an advantage. Both incidents stemmed from two tight clashes on lap 10 between Verstappen and Norris. The resulting 20 seconds worth of time penalties would see Verstappen drop near the back of the pack before recovering positions to close out a respectable, yet just not enough, 6th. With Norris finishing second, the gap is now just 47 points.

Alpine snuck in a point via Pierre Gasly, who had a relatively quiet race - aside from nearly being caught up in the mayhem of TSU and ALB on lap 1.

Kick Sauber had yet another uneventful outing. This being said, both Bottas and Zhou managed to finish in front of the Red Bull of Sergio Perez, (14th, 15th, and 17th respectively) which may be symbolic in itself.

We wait just one more week for the Brazilian Grand Prix in São Paulo, which also happens to feature a sprint race! See you then.