Hamilton seizes victory in Mexico City, holds off P2 Vettel for Mercedes’ 100th F1 win; Bottas stays alive with P3 finish; pole-sitter Leclerc undone by poor pit stop
Mercedes’ ace Lewis Hamilton edged closer to his amazing 6th Drivers’ Championship with a decisive win at Autódromo Hermanos Rodríguez in Mexico City on Sunday. Utilizing a daring one-stop strategy, Hamilton pitted on Lap 24 of this 71-lap contest, shucking off his original Medium Pirellis for a set of durable but pokey Hard tires. With 47 laps left to run Hamilton could be heard over the radio agonizing over that strategy and second-guessing the team’s timing. But even without the calming precense of his usual race engineer Pete Bonnington, who is on medical leave for the next few races, the Silver Arrow braintrust was able to collectively nurse Hamilton through his moments of doubt. Then they were rewarded by watching their ace driver easily hold off the pursuing Ferrari of Sebastian Vettel as the laps wound down. With the current Formula 1 spec being particularly ill-suited to close pursuit due to brake overheating issues and the ambient temperature at this extremely high altitude circuit close to 80 degrees Fahrenheit, the top 5 drivers had to essentially hold station during the last third of the Grand Prix. And so Hamilton was able to convert a P3 start, as well as surviving some opening lap wheel-banging with Red Bull’s Max Vertsappen, into Mercedes’ 100th overall F1 victory. It also left the English superstar just 4 points shy of his sixth title and all but guaranteed secure that milestone next week in Austin, Texas.
For archrival Ferrari it was day of missed opportunities. After being gifted a front row lockout when Verstappen was stripped of his pole position for inexplicably failing to slow under a waved yellow flag on the last lap of Saturday qualifying the legendary Scuderia decided to split their tire strategy between their two drivers, the pole-sitting Charles Leclerc and P2 starter Sebastian Vettel. Vettel would attempt the one-stopper, matching Hamilton but running deeper on his opening stint, and Leclerc went Medium to Medium tires on his first stop on Lap 16 , which meant he would definitely have to stop again. When Vettel finally pitted on Lap 37 after being held up by a battle between midfield runners Carlos Sainz of McLaren and Pierre Gasly of Toro Rosso, he switched from his starting set of Medium tires onto the Hard compound to finish the race. But he also emerged in P4, well behind his teammate Leclerc, who now led the race, as well as Hamilton’s P2 Mercedes and the third place Red Bull of Alexander Albon. A little over halfway through, it appeared the race was now Leclerc’s to lose.
But Ferrari managed to lose it for him. When Leclerc made his second stop for the mandatory switch to a second tire compound, for the Hards like the other front runners, the Prancing Horse pit crew uncharacteristically botched the tire change at the rear left, making for a 6.2 second stop, about four fat seconds longer than the other contenders. That shuffled Leclerc back behind Bottas in P4 and that was where he would finish the race. Vettel came home P2 behind the voctorius Hamilton and Bottas drove effectively after his big qualifying shunt to come home P3 after starting from sixth on the grid. That podium finish meant that Bottas also delayed the inevitable Hamilton coronation at least until the United States GP next week.
Albon drove arguably his best race since going the senior Red Bull team mid-season, keeping his nose clean and showing impressive race craft for a rookie to take P5. Albon’s teammate Verstappen saw his self-inflicted demotion from pole compounded by tangling with both Mercedes during the opening laps. The Dutch wunderkind lost positions after coming together with Hamilton going into Turn 1 and being bounced off track. He then suffering a total tire de-lamination while dicing with Bottas on Lap 5 when the Finn’s front wing contacted the Red Bull’s right rear. After crawling around the circuit en route to the pit lane for critically needed fresh rubber Verstappen emerged dead last. But he had a typically superb recovery drive to will his way all the way back up to P6 as the checkered flag waved. But Verstappen had to be rueing what might have been had he only used a bit more common sense throughout his ragged weekend in Mexico.
Racing Point’s Sergio Perez came home a superb P7 in front of his ecstatic countrymen. Renault’s Daniel Ricciardo went longest on his first stint going all the way to Lap 51 on his first set of Hard tires and converting that strategy into a much needed P8 finish for the team after they had their excellent results in Japan two weeks ago invalidated by FIA for illegal break-bias assist. Ricciardo’s Red Bull teammate Nico Hulkenberg was elevated to P10 after being crashed out by Torro Rosso’s Daniil Kvyat on the final lap, with Kvyat being demoted to P11. Kvyat’s teammate Pierre Gasly salvaged P9 for Toro Rosso for a decidedly mixed result for the junior Red Bull team.
Top 10 finishers of the Mexican GP:
| POS | NO | DRIVER | CAR | LAPS | TIME/RETIRED | PTS |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 44 | Lewis Hamilton | MERCEDES | 71 | 1:36:48.904 | 0 |
| 2 | 5 | Sebastian Vettel | FERRARI | 71 | +1.766s | 0 |
| 3 | 77 | Valtteri Bottas | MERCEDES | 71 | +3.553s | 0 |
| 4 | 16 | Charles Leclerc | FERRARI | 71 | +6.368s | 0 |
| 5 | 23 | Alexander Albon | RED BULL RACING HONDA | 71 | +21.399s | 0 |
| 6 | 33 | Max Verstappen | RED BULL RACING HONDA | 71 | +68.807s | 0 |
| 7 | 11 | Sergio Perez | RACING POINT BWT MERCEDES | 71 | +73.819s | 0 |
| 8 | 3 | Daniel Ricciardo | RENAULT | 71 | +74.924s | 0 |
| 9 | 26 | Daniil Kvyat | SCUDERIA TORO ROSSO HONDA | 70 | +1 lap | 0 |
| 10 | 10 | Pierre Gasly | SCUDERIA TORO ROSSO HONDA | 70 | +1 lap | 0 |
Complete race results available via Formula1.com.
The next race is in but a week’s time — the United States Grand Prix at Circuit of the Americas in Austin, Texas. Hope to see you then for what is likely to be Lewis Hamilton’s cowboy hat coronation as a 6-time Formula 1 champion!