Ferrari mess up a 1-2, Hamilton wins, Lando’s luckless, water is wet.
Lewis Hamilton came away with a surprise win at the 2019 Mexican Grand Prix after Mercedes had struggled through Friday and Saturday on a track that has not been kind to them in recent years.
Max Verstappen had initially taken pole position but was given a three-place grid penalty for ignoring yellow flags after Valtteri Bottas’s nasty crash in the dying seconds of Q3, which left the Finn winded. It was a needless penalty to risk as Verstappen already had pole secured through his previous flying lap but the Dutchman appeared characteristically unrepentant in the press conference.
So a fired-up Verstappen on race day was something of an inevitability. Last year, that approach won him the race; this year, it did not.
Hamilton made a good start but was squeezed onto the grass by Sebastian Vettel – in previous years that may well have earned him a penalty but not with the current approach by the stewards – and that left him with Verstappen on his inside into Turn One. They nearly touched, Verstappen following Vettel’s lead by also squeezing Hamilton to the edge of the track. Hamilton then got a big slap of oversteer and failed to make the corner, leaving Verstappen nowhere to go except joining him on the grass.
The pair recovered to fifth and eighth but Verstappen’s opportunistic move on Bottas in the stadium section resulted in a puncture and a long trip back to the pits.
At the front, it would become a tale of divergent strategies.
Charles Leclerc had retained the lead at the start and led until pitting on lap 15, committing to a two-stop strategy. Alexander Albon would also be pitting twice, having stopped a lap earlier, but the rest of the leaders would go with what transpired to be the faster option of the one-stop.
Mercedes, for once, decided to go with the undercut for Hamilton and pitted him on lap 23, leaving Vettel and Bottas to go much further. The world champion feared they had pitted too early as his two rivals continued on and on at a decent pace. But it turned out to be the perfect move.
After Bottas and Vettel pitted on laps 36 and 37 respectively, and Leclerc came in for his second stop on lap 43, Hamilton appeared to be in trouble – easy prey for the chasing pack. Vettel had 14-lap-younger tyres and his teammate was closing the gap by a second a lap. It looked set for a showdown in the last few laps, as all four drivers converged, but Hamilton had preserved his tyres perfectly and was able to hold his challengers at arm’s length – two seconds in F1 terms – to the chequered flag.
Ultimately, it was a slow-burner of a race that looked ready to explode but the fuse went out just before reaching the fireworks.
Nonetheless, it was a very satisfying win for the Briton and his Mercedes team at a race from which they did not expect a lot. And one that takes him to the very brink of the title. If either he takes at least four points or Bottas doesn’t win next weekend then he is guaranteed a sixth World Championship. Even with a likely coronation, the Americans will have to go some to beat the Mexican post-race ceremony, which featured the race-winning car and driver appearing from below the stage à la Beyoncé…
Is the Old Verstappen Back?
Many spent the first half of this year waxing lyrical about how Max Verstappen had finally matured and it certainly did appear that way. But was it true?
Since the summer break, Verstappen has been on a run not too far from the one he had in early 2018, with first corner incidents at four of the last six races. Certainly, he was blameless in Japan and unfortunate here, but he is back to just always seeming to be involved in something and that often comes down to where a driver is positioning their car.
The move on Bottas was overambitious and clearly hot-headed as, even without the contact, he was just giving Bottas DRS and a tow down the straight immediately after. And on his way back through the field, there was also a slightly clumsy move on Magnussen, followed by overtaking the Dane whilst off the circuit – there doesn’t seem to have been any explanation as to why this wasn’t penalised.
It is that red mist and seeming lack of foresight that he will need to improve upon if he ends up in a genuine title fight in the next couple of seasons. Not lifting whilst passing the scene of Bottas’s crash on Saturday was potentially excusable, due to the lack of the electronic yellow flags, but his demeanour when asked about it was belligerent and arrogant.
The ‘Orange Army’ are quick to remind that he is still only 22 but should five seasons of F1 experience not trump that?
Meanwhile, on the other side of the garage, the slightly older but much less experienced Albon had another solid race. And he has now outscored Verstappen in their time together by 46 points to 27.
His pace is getting stronger as he acclimatises to car and team, as shown by matching Verstappen’s qualifying time to the thousandth of a second in Suzuka. He didn’t look overawed whilst battling with the big names this weekend, maintaining third position in front of Hamilton for the first stint in Mexico, and he is making an increasingly compelling case to be kept on for the Red Bull seat in 2020.
Pérez Sends the Home Crowd Wild
I mean, he always does – all he has to do is drive through the stadium section without putting the car in the wall – but rightly so this weekend with a strong drive to seventh and ‘best of the rest’.
Sergio Pérez and Daniel Ricciardo fought hard for that unofficial honour in the final few laps as the Australian closed in on new, softer tyres but he was unable to pull off a trademark divebomb, locking up and running over the grass into Turn One.
There was some further drama behind them as, during their battle over the final two points positions, Daniil Kvyat punted Nico Hülkenberg into the barriers at the very final corner. The German limped over the finish line with no rear wing and the Russian was given a penalty that dropped him to 11th and promoted his teammate, Pierre Gasly, to ninth.
It was a poor day for McLaren who, having been running fourth and sixth early on, found themselves pointless at the chequered flag. Lando Norris’s appalling luck continued as a pit stop error left him stranded at the end of the pit lane with a loose wheel. And Carlos Sainz just had no pace once on the hard tyre, was forced to stop again, and gradually faded into obscurity, finishing 13th. They’ll hope to be back mixing it with the big teams in Texas.
The Mexican Grand Prix in 60 Seconds
Answering the Burning Questions
Can Lewis Hamilton clinch the world title this weekend? Not quite. But it’s as good as done, barring any kind of 2007-esque cataclysm.
Or can Valtteri Bottas use the momentum of his win in Japan to take the challenge to his teammate? Not really. It could have been worse after that Q3 crash, though.
Which car will deal with the low altitude best? Hard to say. A 1-3 for Mercedes but Ferrari were very strong and who knows what Verstappen could have achieved?
Will there be any more drama between Charles Leclerc and Max Verstappen? Leclerc was one of the few drivers that Verstappen didn’t end up in some kind of drama with.
With thunderstorms forecast over the weekend, could we have our first wet Mexican race? Nope. It poured every evening though… Typical.
