F1 Talk: Title Battle Rumbles on for Hamilton after Mexico

Despite all the talk about whether Lewis Hamilton would win a sixth Formula 1 World Championship and a third consecutive title in Mexico City, the British driver may not have sealed the title here, but his tenth Grand Prix victory of the season was an accomplished performance by the British driver as another championship looms into view.

Saturday in Mexico City was a closely-run affair with the battle for pole position being fought between Ferrari and Red Bull Racing, with Max Verstappen setting the fastest time at the end of the qualifying session. However, the Dutchman was awarded a three-place grid penalty for not slowing under yellow flags on his final run in Q3 with Mercedes’ Valtteri Bottas in the wall on the exit of the final corner.

This meant that Charles Leclerc claimed his seventh pole position of the season ahead of Sebastian Vettel with Lewis Hamilton in the Mercedes starting third. Heading into the race, a very angry Verstappen desperate to claim a third consecutive Mexican GP win, started from fourth on the grid.

As the lights went out, the two Ferraris of Leclerc and Vettel blasted off the line and headed the chasing pack into the first turn. But it was all-action behind as Hamilton had a huge oversteer moment and with Verstappen and Hamilton side-by-side into turns 2-3, the Ductchman was forced onto the grass and rejoined the action.

Hamilton also lost out, dropping two positions to the Red Bull of Alexander Albon and the McLaren of Carlos Sainz Jr, who was running fourth in the early stages. The Virtual Safety Car was then deployed to sort out all the debris following the first lap shenanigans with Leclerc leading Vettel and Albon.

On lap four, Hamilton made a crucial passing manoeuvre on Carlos Sainz Jr and began chasing after the front three with the two Ferraris setting a relatively sedate pace during the early stages of the Grand Prix.

Behind the front-runners, Max Verstappen made a bold overtaking move on Valtteri Bottas in the stadium section for seventh place, but it soon became apparent that he picked up a puncture in the process which effectively ruined his race, forcing him to make an early pitstop and go to the end of the race on a set of hard tyres.

The strategy started to develop earlier than expected in the race with the midfield runners pitting as early as lap 11, with first Pierre Gasly and Daniil Kvyat stopping from the soft onto the medium tyres for a two-stop strategy.

Shortly afterwards (on lap 13) McLaren followed suit with Lando Norris making his pitstop from seventh in the order, but his front-left tyre was not properly attached and while they wheeled him back to re-join the race, any chance of a points finish ended there and then.

Red Bull Racing then made the first call on the pit stop, bringing Alexander Albon in on lap 15 with Ferrari responding with race leader Charles Leclerc the following lap to cover the Red Bull driver’s two-stop strategy. That left Vettel out in the race lead with Hamilton just two seconds further behind.

On lap 24, Mercedes made their move and effectively checkmated Ferrari as Hamilton pitted on lap 24 with the aim to do a one-stop strategy until the end of the Grand Prix.

Ferrari did not respond initially with Vettel, believing that he would have to go much deeper into the race in order to make an effective one-stop strategy work, but by doing so, knew that they would emerge several seconds behind the British driver.

In the midfield, home hero Sergio Perez was now looking good for best of the rest slot with a magical one-stop strategy with Daniel Riccardo’s immense stint on the hard tyres it was hoped would bring him into play with the Mexican by the end of the race.

As for Toro Rosso and McLaren, after starting on the soft tyres, their two-stop strategy would mean that they would have to cut through the order effectively in order to challenge for points by the end of the race.

But on lap 36, Carlos Sainz and Pierre Gasly were tripping up over each other scrapping for eleventh place with the Frenchman finally making his way through. Although in their battle, Vettel lost multiple seconds as he was held up before his pit stop the following lap.

Vettel then emerged some seven seconds behind Hamilton with 34 laps left and Bottas came in the lap after to emerge in a net third place.

Once the one-stoppers had cycled through, race leader Charles Leclerc started to lose pace hand over fist and finally came into the pit lane on lap 44 for a set of hard tyres in his bid to catch and pass the front three. But a slow pit stop for the Monegasque, losing him four seconds, made a very hard job almost impossible with 16 seconds to make up to Hamilton before the end of the race.

Out front, Vettel and Bottas were unable to sufficiently close the gap to race leader Hamilton despite their best efforts with the Brit maintaining a relatively consistent pace in the mid-1 min 20s. The Finn looked more of a threat to the German than Vettel was to Hamilton.

Charles Leclerc pushed hard to close the gap to Bottas, and on lap 58, he was within striking distance until he locked up passing a backmarker into turn four which ruined any chance he had of catching the two ahead of him.

So in the end despite Hamilton’s insecurities, the British driver won the Mexican GP to claim his tenth win of the season and his 83rd career victory. Vettel finished less than two seconds behind with Bottas making it a Mercedes double podium in third.

On the final lap, Daniil Kvyat was fighting Nico Hulkenberg for ninth place but drove into him on the final corner of the race, pitching the German into the wall. The Russian crossed the line in ninth ahead of his team-mate Pierre Gasly with Hulkenberg removing himself from the barrier to be classified eleventh.

However, Kvyat was given a five-second penalty which means that Hulkenberg was classified tenth despite the final corner crash with Gasly promoted to ninth. But after the race, the Russian branded that such moves by the stewards was “killing the sport”. Although, it is unclear how anyone could substantially argue against the decision that was taken at the end of a Grand Prix.

The Formula 1 circus continues this weekend at the Circuit of the Americas for the US GP where Lewis Hamilton is almost certainly on course to win the world championship.

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