Lando Norris had the best of afternoons at Mexico City, leading the race from start to finish and ending with a big advantage over second placed Charles Leclerc. Max Verstappen recovered to third while Oliver Bearman earned Driver of the Day by finishing 4th for Haas.
When the lights went out for a long run to the first corner, Norris immediately opted to go to the right to defend the inside line to the crucial Turn 1. Both Ferraris were close in the slipstream it but at Norris who maintained the lead after Leclerc returned the position after Turn 3 following his cut of Turn 1.
The corner was extremely hectic with without damage for anyone. Verstappen notable completely missed the corner after being on the left kerbstone. He went straight on and then took 4th place when returning to the track, much to the displeasure of Russell in 5th who outlined how Verstappen braked late and simply went straight on.
Bearmen followed in 6th, then Antonalli, Tsunoda and Piastri down in 9th only. Ocon completed the top 10.
As Norris tried to extend his lead over Leclerc, the battle happened behind them with an overtaking attempt of Verstappen on Hamilton on lap 6. Verstappen got the corner but forcefully bumped Hamilton off the track. Verstappen got the position but then seemed very slow in the subsequent corners that Hamilton locked up both fronts trying to avoid a collision, eventually taking the escape road of Turn 7. Hamilton emerged in third again while Verstappen got passed by Bearman.
Hamilton’s return to the track though as he didn’t really follow the escape road that the race director had pointed out earlier in the weekend. This was closed but soon followed by a 10-second penalty for leaving the track and gaining an advantage.
As Verstappen focused mainly on Antonelli’s mounting pressure, Piastri finally made it past Tsunoda on lap 11. Clearly the Red Bulls were suffering on their medium compound tyres while the rest of the top 10 started on the soft tyres. Piastri immediately upped his pace to reel in Verstappen and he Mercedes duo a couple of seconds ahead. Tsunoda wasn’t able to keep up at all and quickly came under attack by Ocon.
By lap 18, Norris was 7.5 seconds ahead of Leclerc. Hamilton 5 seconds behind his teammate with Bearman following another 4 seconds further down. Verstappen and Antonelli followed closely but weren’t really challenging for position changes. Piastri was though,, trying to overtake Russell but it proved not an easy task with the Australian finding repeatedly that he lacked a couple meters towards the end of the straight to make a proper passing attempt.
At the end of lap 24, Antonelli is the first top 10 drier to take to the pits, switching from soft to medium tyres. Hamilton followed the next lap to also serve his penalty while Bearman had returned to within 1.5 seconds of the Ferrari driver. Hamilton returned in 14th position. Piastri was up next with a poor 3.6s pitstop, rejoining the track just ahead of Hamilton. Bearman on the other hand had a good stop and was 9th.
Leclerc held on until lap 32 to change to a shiny new set of medium Pirelli tyres. Norris meanwhile happily continued his stint on softs, steadily increasing his advantage. With Leclerc down in 3rd, the gap to second placed Verstappen was 25 seconds. Norris was eventually pitted at the end of lap 34, returning to the track still with 7 seconds in hand over Verstappen.
4 laps later that advantage had increased to 12 seconds before Verstappen pitted and switched to softs. He returned in 8th, 7 seconds behind Hamilton.
George Russell meanwhile was having fun with his engineer. After the latter warned him of increased brake temperatures, surely because of trailing and trying to overtake Antonelli, Russell said “I’ve got a McLaren up my ass, do you want me to let him go?”. The discussion went on with Russell asking to be let go and to try to overtake Bearman. The Mercedes drivers eventually switched on lap 41 and managed to avoid Piastri taking advantage of it right away.
When Verstappen ended up behind Hamilton on lap 47, the first attempt was a success as Hamilton didn’t even bother defending his position. Clearly his tyres were pretty dead so he pitted, following Antonelli and Piastri. Piastri emerged first thanks to a poor stop at Mercedes. Hamilton didn’t have the greatest stop either but definitely came out closer to Antonelli than he was before the stop. All three switched to softs again with 22 laps remaining.
Bearman and Russell also made this switch one lap later and remained ahead of the trio led by Piastri. Russell though followed that up with a fastest lap and was soon in Bearman’s slipstream to fight for 4th place. That pressure didn’t last for long as Bearman remained calm and saw Russell drop out of DRS after a couple of laps. This brought about a change for Piastri who surely took his chance on lap 60 to move up into 5th place.
At the same time, Leclerc, 23 seconds behind Norris and 11 seconds ahead of Verstappen was informed they were planning to stay on these tyres until the end of the race. Leclerc’s advantage would steadily evaporate in the next laps while Verstappen pushed hard to try to get second place. The pace difference was little more than half a second a lap, leaving 2.7 seconds with 5 laps remaining.
Behind them, Piastri was closing in on Bearman, the duo separated by 1.5 seconds while Piastri was the fastest man on track. It took a few more laps but on lap 69 Piastri finally had DRS enabled on Bearman. For Verstappen that happened only on lap 70.
An incident in the final sector however ruined the fun as a Virtual Safety Car was brought in action. Half a lap form the end the racing was on again . Neither Verstappen nor Piastri still found a way to make it past the car ahead, leaving positions unchanged and Norris becoming the rightful winner in utterly dominant fashion.
F1: RaceGP Mexico
