Carlos Sainz (Ferrari) won the 2024 Mexican Grand Prix – but the history of the race was once again written by Max Verstappen (Red Bull) and Lando Norris (McLaren). Because the duel between the two World Championship opponents escalated on the track at the beginning of the race. Consequence: two (!) ten-second penalties for Verstappen.
The defending champion then delivered a consistent comeback and secured important points for the championship fight in sixth place, but lost ground to Norris in the drivers’ standings. He finished second behind Sainz in Mexico, thanks to an overtaking maneuver against Charles Leclerc (Ferrari) on the 62nd of 71st laps.
Pole sitter Sainz controlled the race confidently and was never in danger once he took the lead. What was exciting, however, was the duel for second place, which actually seemed to have already been decided in Leclerc’s favor. But the Ferrari’s tires collapsed at the finish, and when Leclerc slid off the track in the last corner, Norris was there to dust him off.
The Mercedes-internal duel for fourth place was worth seeing. “You are free to race,” it was said on the pit radio, and so George Russell and Lewis Hamilton fought a thrilling duel in the last ten laps. With the better end for Hamilton, even though he had tires that were three laps older.
Verstappen was sixth, followed by Kevin Magnussen (Haas), Oscar Piastri (McLaren), Nico Hülkenberg (both Haas) and Pierre Gasly (Alpine).
Fernando Alonso (Aston Martin) retired from the 400th Grand Prix of his career with brake failure.
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How did Verstappen fall so far behind?
What is certain is that the so-called driving standards to Mexico will continue to be a hotly debated topic. And once again Verstappen is the focus. At the start he initially had the better end when he pulled past Sainz before turn 1, who then overtook him back off the track and immediately afterwards let Verstappen pass without a fight in order to save himself trouble with the race stewards.
But after the safety car phase, the battle at the front escalated. First, Sainz pushed past Verstappen again with a hard but fair maneuver in Turn 1. Also because Verstappen’s hybrid system started charging at the end of the start-finish straight: “What should I do if my battery is empty? What’s with this stupid mode?”
So Verstappen now had his new favorite rival Norris in the rearview mirror. He didn’t hesitate for long and attacked for the first time on lap 10. But when it came to defense, Verstappen took out the crowbar, braked extremely late into Turn 7, didn’t make the turn himself and also pushed Norris away.
“I was in front, all the way through the curve. The guy is dangerous!” Norris shouted on the pit radio. The neutral ORF expert Alexander Wurz also agrees: “An extremely brutal maneuver.”
Verstappen accepted the first ten-second penalty for leaving the track and gaining an advantage with some composure: “Ten? That’s pretty impressive.” And his race engineer Gianpiero Lambiase even dared to joke a little: “There was a lot of wind. A lot.”
In reality, it wasn’t the wind that blew Verstappen off the track, but rather his blown fuses. The fact that he received a second ten-second penalty shortly afterwards for leaving the track and gaining an advantage did not help to calm them down.
Two penalties for a duel with Norris were too much for Verstappen’s nerves: “And what about him, turn 4? That’s okay? That’s stupid, man!”
Red Bull brought Verstappen into the pits at the end of lap 26, and after 20 seconds, Verstappen was only in 15th place. Behind him were only Perez, who in turn escaped scot-free during investigations into questionable driving standards, and Lance Stroll in the Aston Martin, who had previously clashed with Perez.
Verstappen was now almost a minute behind Sainz. And with anger in his stomach, he started a furious race to catch up. On lap 38 he passed Lawson and was back in seventh place, now 2.5 seconds behind Piastri in the McLaren, who had not yet stopped at that point. As the only one of the top drivers.
Piastri then turned into the pits, Verstappen was now sixth, complained about “zero grip” and was around ten seconds behind Hamilton. Who in turn had already been overtaken by Russell before the pit stop, in a hot internal team duel.
That was the end of Verstappen’s race to catch up.
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Was Sainz in serious danger at some point?
The big beneficiary of the Verstappen-Norris duel was Leclerc, who passed both of them when Verstappen pushed the McLaren off the track at Turn 8 and was Sainz’s first pursuer from then on.
At first, Leclerc was able to keep up with his teammate’s pace – a phase in which Sainz mumbled something on the radio (“Come on, boys, stop thinking about it, honestly!”) and was obviously not satisfied. But after that he was able to pull further away from Leclerc and gain control of the race. When Leclerc came into the pits on lap 31, he was already 9.2 seconds behind Sainz.
Sainz actually wanted to extend his first stint, but his race engineer very firmly ordered him into the pits so as not to run the risk of losing the lead in the event of another safety car.
After successfully changing tires from medium to hard, the Spaniard just had to drive home his well-deserved victory. “Strong. Great performance from Carlos Sainz and Ferrari,” applauds Wurz.
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How did Sergio Perez’s home race go?
The Perez family seems to be suffering from a denial of reality around the home Grand Prix. Papa Antonio raised eyebrows in the run-up to the weekend when he said his son would one day become Formula 1 world champion and president of Mexico. And on race Sunday, the son also seems to have lost sight of the facts.
Because he was clearly in front of his starting box at the start and consequently received a five-second penalty. When his race engineer informed him that he was “under investigation,” Perez just mumbled: “No. It was a great start!” And when he was informed of the penalty, he replied to his race engineer: “Look at this. I don’t believe it.”
The facts were crystal clear: “It wasn’t just a tiny bit, but half a meter. If not a little more,” Wurz states.
Exciting: When Lawson completed his pit stop, the “junior bull” came onto the track directly in front of Perez, and the two were now fighting for 16th place. An explosive duel, after all, Lawson is considered one of the contenders for the place at Red Bull Racing Perez really got kicked out there.
However, the duel did not escalate because Red Bull called Perez into the pits again. Possibly to at least give him the chance to set the fastest race lap in front of the home crowd. At that point, Perez no longer played a role in the overall standings.
In the end, Perez came 15th. And it wasn’t he who secured the fastest lap of the race, but Leclerc. Norris initially had the bonus point, but then Lawson – just like Daniel Ricciardo in Singapore – was sent out again with fresh tires when it was clear that he wouldn’t score any points anyway.
But the Racing Bulls did the math without Ferrari. Leclerc, lying in third place, had enough buffer behind to switch to soft tires again. And retained third place and won the important point for the constructors’ championship.
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Why did the safety car come after lap 1?
In addition to Verstappen, Yuki Tsunoda also apparently got pumped up with a little too much Red Bull in Mexico. At the start on the left side of the road, the Japanese tried to make up for his qualifying crash in the first corner with a late braking maneuver. But that ended in a hara-kiri act that almost went wrong.
Because when Tsunoda drove past Alexander Albon (Williams), who braked well in front of him, Albon had Gasly’s Alpine next to him on the right. And there wasn’t enough space for three cars, so Tsunoda Albon drove over the left front wheel and flew off before the first corner. Albon also coasted.
From Wurz’s point of view, it was “extremely brave and almost borderline that he stayed out of it for so long.” For Tsunoda it was another setback in the fight for a promotion to Red Bull Racing after Helmut Marko criticized him on Saturday after qualifying.
The safety car went onto the track so that track security could collect the wreckage. Except for the one that got caught in the brakes of Fernando Alonso (Aston Martin) and ended his 400th Grand Prix prematurely.
Source: www.sport.de
