How the F1 title race became even tighter after Norris dominated in Mexico

McLaren made the journey to Mexico with a rot to stop. Only a few weeks ago, it looked inevitable that one of its drivers would claim their first Formula 1 title win given the gulf to the rest of the field – but in that time, a resurgent Max Verstappen had scythed away at a once-three-figure points deficit. With his arrears now a far more manageable 40 points to Oscar Piastri, McLaren needed to get serious.

In recent races, the MCL39 had looked capricious at best. Contextualised by Red Bull’s growing momentum, there was reason for McLaren to be slightly worried when it got to Mexico – especially as Red Bull has historically gone well at the high-altitude Autodromo Hermanos Rodriguez.

Friday’s second practice session painted two very different portraits of McLaren’s chances at the Mexico Grand Prix. On one hand: a struggle to squeeze qualifying pace out of its MCL39, as both Piastri and Lando Norris found the car flighty and difficult to coax around the lap at full pelt. The two found improvements on subsequent runs, but the true pace on the soft remained obfuscated by tyre use.

On the other, there was Norris’ foreboding soft-tyre stint in the latter half of the session. An average of eight-tenths per lap over the fastest stint on the mediums – logged by George Russell – suggested that even if qualifying pace was not forthcoming, the race stints could bring the team back into play.

As it happened, the qualifying pace was very much forthcoming; once Norris turned on the tap, he could scarcely turn it off - such was his progression through the three phases of the session. Charles Leclerc kept him in check throughout Q3, but Norris found a hatful of time in the final sector to ensure he would start ahead of the Ferrari driver.

With such a long run into Turn 1, however, pole position can be something of a poisoned chalice. Lewis Hamilton, starting third, suggested that he was planning to give both Norris and Leclerc something to think about into the opening corner as he took aim at a first Ferrari podium. It didn’t happen like that, of course; the other characteristic of the Mexico City race lies in the liberties usually taken at the opening corner.

Norris evaded the first-corner drama as Leclerc and Verstappen went wide

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Although Norris scampered out of his grid box at the lights to leave the two Ferraris in his wake, the liberties were on display. Both Leclerc and Verstappen ran across the grass, Hamilton braked late to put Norris under a bit of pressure, and the out of position Leclerc bled off the throttle to let Norris back through. For all the moments of high drama and messy driving from the cars around him, Norris survived the skirmish.

The Briton now had clean air, outrageous race pace, and the high ground. McLaren knew what it could do over a soft tyre stint – it had already demonstrated that in FP2 – but the medium stint presented something of an unknown given both drivers hadn’t done much running with it in practice.

Thus, Norris was tasked with inflating his lead to a point where the medium stint wouldn’t be of apparent concern. Leclerc, who’d shaken out from the opening lap with second still in his control, was never able to pull out similar laps to Norris; after the opening 10 tours, the Monegasque’s pace was beginning to stray into the high 1m22s and low 1m23s as Ferrari had to employ lift-and-coast tactics to keep the car cool. Norris, meanwhile, spent a while longer in the low 1m22s to continue to exert his dominance over the race.

"He was very convincing. He was able to capitalise on the performance and the strength of the car. In a way, these special low-grip conditions, they fit him perfectly" Andrea Stella

Norris’ own times had fallen into the realms of the 1m23s after the 30th lap, while Leclerc’s pace had hit that bracket as early as lap 16. Even if Leclerc had been able to take the lead into Turn 1, it’s likely that he wouldn’t enjoy a repeat of Austin where he’d been able to keep the chasing McLaren under wraps for 20 laps or so. Ultimately, Norris just had more performance underneath him.

After stopping on lap 34, Norris’ pace on the medium was almost equivalent to that of Verstappen on the soft; the Red Bull driver was comfortably in the low 1m21s, while Norris spent much of the stint sitting in the middle range of the 1m21s bracket. Did he have more in hand? Possibly, but the lead over Leclerc was already sufficient enough to cover off almost every eventuality. After their respective stops, Norris’ lead over Leclerc was already 16 seconds, and climbing.

“I think when we look at Lando's recent years, we have seen a weekend with this level of dominance also in some other venues,” team principal Andrea Stella noted post-race. “Like last year, I think we saw it in Zandvoort. We saw it in Singapore. So, it's not the first time, I think, that Lando exhibits performances at this level.

The Ferraris sit behind Norris - but he was soon out of sight

Photo by: Zak Mauger / LAT Images via Getty Images

“Here, he was very convincing. He was able to capitalise on the performance and the strength of the car. In a way, these special low-grip conditions, they fit perfectly. It's a natural way of extracting lap time, which is almost like opposite to Oscar's characteristics. I think it will just strengthen Lando's confidence. And it will be important for the final four races. But I think both Lando and Oscar go into the final four races with reasons to be confident.”

We’ll touch on Piastri’s struggles in a moment, but it’s worth delving into Verstappen’s race as the Dutchman looked down-and-out on the mediums, then scintillating on the softs. Red Bull struggled in qualifying and Verstappen, who’d looked good after Friday, had a bit of a flat Saturday and looked like the wind had been knocked out of his previously billowing sails.

One of the issues that Verstappen faced was in uncertainty over set-up. He tried a higher-downforce rear wing arrangement in FP3, but didn’t like it and lost too much straightline speed as a result. He then landed in qualifying with a ride height that didn’t mesh particularly well with the second sector. Through the high-speed Esses section, the RB21 tended to bottom out and made the steering go light – Verstappen hence lost time trying to keep the car pointing the right way.

In a race situation, this was less of an issue – but in starting in the pack, there was a danger that Verstappen could lose more than just time battling with the cars around him. He attempted to make the first corner a four-wide situation, but had to bail and skipped across the grass after outdragging Russell into the opening corner.

After conceding position to Hamilton having taken third off the road, Verstappen rekindled his battle with his 2021 title rival five laps later and threw a move up the inside of the Ferrari driver into the first corner. Hamilton was left to take to the run-off, but stayed alongside to return the favour on the exit of Turn 2 to continue the battle through the next stretch of DRS.

Hamilton went late on the brakes at Turn 4 to try to reclaim the place, but ended up mowing his own track across the grass and resumed position – fatally to his podium hopes, as he copped a 10-second penalty for it – further up the road. Verstappen himself had also braked late to defend and went a bit wide at Turn 4, then went to cover Russell’s attempts to profit off the situation. But, having lost momentum and in taking a wide exit to Turn 5 to hold the place, Verstappen let Bearman trickle through, as the Haas driver was in fine form.

After a difficult opening stint, Verstappen's majestic soft-tyre spell catapulted him into the top three

Photo by: Zak Mauger / LAT Images via Getty Images

Like Norris, Bearman had looked incredibly strong on the soft tyre during his FP2 long-run. Haas’ performance in that session was underpinned by Esteban Ocon’s long-run on the unfancied C2 hard tyre, demonstrating that the American squad had got itself dialled in – augmented with the new floor that the team had introduced in Austin.

Verstappen squared up to Bearman on the exit of Turn 6 and tried to keep him in the pocket of the next corner, but Bearman had enough momentum – and one tyre on the white line – to vault past the Red Bull.

Had Verstappen started on softs, it might have been a different prospect in that moment – but Red Bull’s decision to try a different strategy ensured that it lost the battle, but ultimately won the war. The soft tyre was the much better option for the low-grip conditions, while the medium was much more prone to sliding. When Verstappen pitted for softs, his pace was such that he shook out in eighth behind Hamilton, but the seas rather parted for him when Andrea Kimi Antonelli, Piastri, and Hamilton simultaneously switched to two-stop strategies.

Verstappen’s greater race performance over qualifying had emerged through lower race speeds to cause less bottoming out - but it took a bit of Max Magic to rattle through an exceptional soft stint

Bearman and Russell did likewise a lap later, foisting Verstappen into the top three and with a clear path to close in on Leclerc. In effect, he had 23 laps to close down a 13-second disadvantage – within five laps, it was down to 10 seconds, and shrinking rapidly.

Leclerc was going to the end on his mediums, but he’d never been comfortable with the yellow-walled compound and continued to haemorrhage time versus Norris in front of him. He spent most of his stint in the 1m21.9s-1m22.0s, by point of comparison to Norris’ consistent mid-1m21s and Verstappen’s lower range of 1m21s.

With five laps remaining, Leclerc was left to sweat as Verstappen’s rear wing opened for the first time in his wake. It almost seemed inevitable that the Red Bull driver would pass – at least, until a frenetic end to the race was stamped out by the emergence of the virtual safety car, as Sainz pulled up in the stadium to retire. The VSC seemed drawn out, given that Sainz was pretty much at the service exit, and was enough to snuff out a chance at a final blast of DRS.

“I think without it, there was more chances of Max getting past than me staying in front,” Leclerc breathed after the race, relieved from the pressure by the full-course yellow. “Especially with those medium tyres, the feeling was just not there from the beginning to the end. I was definitely tempted by the two stops, but I don't know.

Verstappen made Leclerc sweat - but the late VSC came to the Monegasque's aid

Photo by: Sam Bloxham / LAT Images via Getty Images

“At the end, I just stuck to what I was on, which was the medium tyre and tried to make it work. And we did. It was close.”

Verstappen’s greater race performance over qualifying had been a product of the lower race speeds, so the car simply didn’t bottom out as much in the middle sector. But it took a bit of Max Magic to rattle through an exceptional soft stint, even if the cars ahead two-stopping greased the path to an unexpected podium. He was even sanguine about the timing of the VSC: “you win some, you lose some,” was his verdict.

Importantly, he also took four more points out of the championship leader – now Norris, not Piastri, as the Australian’s fifth-place finish put him behind his team-mate by a single point.

Stella’s suggestion was that Piastri faced a greater struggle in low-grip circumstances versus Norris, which partially tallies with his driver’s suggestion that he’s had to drive the car in a “not natural” way in the past two races. Piastri was another driver undone by the VSC timing, as he was attempting to put a move on Bearman to rescue fourth place. Bearman’s decision to pre-empt Russell by two-stopping appeared to concede a first-ever Haas podium, but Verstappen would have gobbled him up anyway owing to the Red Bull driver’s soft-tyre pace.

Piastri didn’t seem too disheartened that he’d lost the title lead, even amid the adversity faced across the North American double-header. Actually, it might have done him some good: the pressure might be off a little bit from this point. With just 36 points between the top three heading into the final four rounds, Piastri will hope that the remaining circuits allow him to find that ease with the MCL39 once more.

Still, he’s in a tough fight – Norris and Verstappen are very much on form, and Brazil is a circuit that’s been good to the two men around him in the drivers’ championship. If he can stay close to them throughout, then he’s got a prime opportunity to strike at the business end of the year. The title race plot is thickening.

Andrea Stella does his best impression of the one point separating his two drivers

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