Hamilton finishes P4 doing enough to earn fifth world title in Mexico

Red Bull’s Verstappen cruises to victory; Vettel a hard fought P2, Raikkonen P3 in consolation podium for Ferrari

Despite not winning the race and coming home a disappointing fourth place, Mercedes’ ace Lewis Hamilton scored enough points to claim his remarkable fifth Formula 1 Drivers’ Championship at Autódromo Hermanos Rodríguez in Mexico City on Sunday. By dint of his consistently superlative season, which includes 9 victories out of the 19 contests so far, Hamilton’s P4 at the Mexican Grand Prix still put him mathematically out of reach of his nearest pursuer, Ferrari’s Sebastian Vettel. Hamilton joins 1950s legend Juan Manual Fangio and Michael Schumacher as the only drivers to win at least 5 World Championships and only Schumacher has more with a record 7. Of course, F1 fortunes can change quickly but at only 33-years of age and piloting the superlative Silver Arrow it is quite conceivable that Hamilton might tie or even break the great Schumacher’s seemingly untouchable benchmark for championships. We shall see. But for now let us appreciate one of F1’s greatest careers in any era and a man as suited to this period of the sport as Fangio, Jim Clark, Jackie Stewart, Alain Prost, Ayrton Senna and Schumacher were to theirs. Once again, in 2018 Ham is the man.

Pics courtesy GrandPrix247.com

Despite Hamilton’s massive career accomplishment it was not really Mercedes’ day. Both Hamilton and his wingman, Valtteri Bottas, struggled on the softer, quick-degrading Pirelli tires on offer for this high altitude race. Along with Hamilton’s subpar P4, Bottas would come home a lackluster P5 and a full lap down. No, the race belonged to Red Bull’s Max Verstappen, who made a dynamite start from P2, pipping his pole-sitting teammate, Daniel Ricciardo, for a race lead he would never really relinquish. Verstapppen easily held off a late charge by a desperate Vettel to make it two wins in a row in Mexico, where the Red Bull really seems to thrive on the thin air, and log his fifth GP career victory. With a little better mount next year look for the Dutch wunderkind to challenge Hamilton and make a serious run for his first Drivers’ Championship.

But all was not completely well for Red Bull. With their veteran Ricciardo looking like he too would podium and doing his best to hold off Vettel for P2 as the race wound down, the Australian’s engine began to smoke ominously on Lap 62 of this 71-lap contest. Sure enough, Ricciardo was soon parked on the side of the road, necessitating a brief Virtual Safety Car to clear off his expired Red Bull. It was the unlucky Aussie’s unfortunate eighth retirement of the season and stunning sixth out of the last 11 races. Danny Ric has got to be hoping that the Renault’s performance will be more reliable in the factory spec when he jumps over to them next season.

Riccardo’s retirement elevated Kimi Raikkonen, last week’s race winner, to the podium and he finished a little over half a minute behind Vettel’s second place. One has got to wonder of these are the final podium finishes of the Finn’s illustrious career as he gets set for the transition to development work with Sauber next season. The lone surviving Renault of Nico Huilkenberg finished P6, while both Saubers came home in the points, with Charles Leclerc taking P7 and Marcus Ericsson P9. McLaren’s Stoffel Vandoorne ended a 14-race points drought with a solid P8 drive while Toro Rosso’s Pierre Gasly took the last points paying position in P10.

Top 10 finishers of the Mexican GP:

Complete race results available via Formula1.com.

The next race, the penultimate of the season, is in two weeks time as we work our way south in the Western hemisphere — the Brazilian Grand Prix from Interlagos. With Hamilton already clinching the Drivers’ title we should see Mercedes do the same for the Constructors’ Championship down Sao Paolo way, again at Ferrari’s expense. Hope to see you then to find out how it if the Scuderia can hold off the inevitable might of Mercedes for one more week!