The four rivals that could've made Verstappen’s record F1 Mexico GP win harder

Another Mexico Grand Prix is in the books, another Max Verstappen victory at the Autodromo Hermanos Rodriguez and, for the second year in succession, the Dutchman has secured a new record for single Formula 1 season victories at the Mexico City track.

Really, Verstappen won two races last Sunday – the 71-lap effort effectively split in two (almost) equal parts by Haas driver Kevin Magnussen’s big crash. Once again, Verstappen looked effortlessly better than the rest.

But, is there a case to be made that Verstappen might have had to work harder had just a few things gone differently in what ultimately turned out to be his fifth Mexican F1 win? Was there even a rival that could have beaten him on the day?

Well, at least four drivers had the chance to put pressure on the eventual winner. But, for various reasons, all were thwarted.

Which isn’t to say Verstappen contributed little to his success, for this was a day when he repeated his magnificent start on the long run to Turn 1 here from 2021, albeit this time passing two Ferrari cars instead of a Mercedes duo and stealing the lead beautifully on the inside line at the first corner, not the outside.

And this was exactly where his first potential rival fell.

Perez: Goes for home glory and loses race to heart-wrenching Leclerc clash

As good as Verstappen’s first start was last Sunday, it wasn’t even the best example from a Red Bull driver. That went to his team-mate and the home hero, Sergio Perez.

Photo by: Andy Hone / Motorsport Images

Perez gambled with his aggressive charge to the first corner but it didn't pay off

Starting fifth after yet another underwhelming qualifying session, Perez immediately made amends – reacting to the lights going out in front of his adoring home crowd in just 0.23 seconds. This was 0.02s up on Verstappen.

That got Perez immediately alongside and ahead of Daniel Ricciardo’s AlphaTauri and, as Verstappen was carving his way between surprise polesitter Charles Leclerc and his Ferrari team-mate Carlos Sainz, one RB19 got a beautiful slipstream from the other.

That the Red Bulls had made such a great launch was going against the run of recent play – based on Verstappen’s comments in Austin about being swamped by the McLaren and Mercedes cars at the opening turns in the respective preceding Japan and Qatar events.

Red Bull team boss Christian Horner put his cars’ successes this time down to his drivers and engineers working together to ace “the conditions, the Tarmac, the altitude and everything” for better start performances.

"I saw the opportunity and I went for it. In hindsight, I took a risk, but if I had pulled it off, I would have come out of Turn 1 in the lead" Sergio Perez

“It was just doing our procedures a bit better, understanding the tyre grip, clutch settings,” Verstappen later explained. “I think we just have been probably a bit more sharp on that [in Mexico].”

Verstappen, having made his way past Sainz and into a corner-winning position against Leclerc halfway down the run to Turn 1, was in command. But, actually, he was the second Red Bull in the order when the leaders finally hit the brakes for the 90-degree right-hander, such was Perez’s slipstream slingshot around Leclerc.

This took him to the outside line and towards the same place where Verstappen passed both Mercedes cars so thrillingly here in 2021. Perez’s run was so good, he got a nose that had been adorned with a local charm figure on the grid fractionally ahead of Leclerc, with Verstappen basically the same distance back but on the critical inside line.

Photo by: Andy Hone / Motorsport Images

The Mexican was forced to retire from his home race due to the damage sustained in his Turn 1 launch

They braked virtually in unison 75 metres out, just after Verstappen had moved slightly left to open up his trajectory. Leclerc was caught with “nowhere to go” as Perez swept in, nowhere near far enough ahead with Leclerc committed, and contact was inevitable.

Perez was launched briefly skywards, spinning to the back of the pack in the gigantic Turn 1 run-off. He got going again quickly but could immediately tell his car was damaged. In the end, after a check in the pits, Red Bull decided “there was just too much damage to the floor and underbody of the car”, again according to Horner.

"Without a doubt I'm sad because today was my opportunity," Perez said afterwards. "I had a very good start and I was only thinking of winning the race. I didn't want to be on the podium. I've been on the podium two years in a row.

"I saw the opportunity and I went for it. In hindsight, I took a risk, but if I had pulled it off, I would have come out of Turn 1 in the lead."

Horner reckoned without the crash, Perez “would’ve been on the podium for sure”. But he also teased of a potential close race between his two drivers, with Perez’s mighty FP2 pace on the hards worth recalling. He was 0.575s quicker on average than McLaren’s Oscar Piastri, the only available comparison but worthy thanks to the orange team being in genuine reckoning for second best race pace last weekend – more on that later.

“It would have been a straight fight between the two of them,” explained Horner. “Checo had good pace this weekend, it’s just frustrating that it was a first corner incident. That was my fear going into the race.”

Leclerc: Undone by poor starts and more Ferrari strategy misfortune

For the 11th successive time from pole, Leclerc failed to convert searing qualifying speed into victory. The biggest potential for his (slim) chances of depriving Verstappen came at Turn 1, but a sluggish, very low-revving getaway meant the fight was swiftly over.

Photo by: Zak Mauger / Motorsport Images

After tangling with Perez, Leclerc was still able to produce impressive pace that was quicker than his team-mate behind

But still Leclerc could have made things more interesting for Verstappen thanks to the differing strategy games that played out once Perez was out of the race. Immediately after the Turn 1 clash, Leclerc took to the grass and rejoined ahead, wisely instantly ceding the lead to Verstappen.

By the end of the first tour, Leclerc was 1.6s in arrears, but his immediate concern related to the damage he’d sustained as the filling of the Red Bull start sandwich.

“When I saw Checo with his rear wheel touching my front wheel, I was like, ‘OK, that's [the race] done for me’,” Leclerc said of this stage. “And then I did two, three corners and it didn't feel too bad.”

“If we pitted [Charles] two laps after, it [would’ve been] with the red flag and we would have restarted from pole” Fred Vasseur

Indeed, with his left-side front wing endplate broken, Leclerc was still able to lap quicker than team-mate Sainz behind – the Spaniard unable to match Leclerc’s 1m23.784s average over their first stints by 0.332s. This march included Leclerc’s loose endplate falling off at the start of lap four, which triggered a near two-tour virtual safety car neutralisation during which none of the leaders pitted.

Leclerc was investigated for possibly “driving in an unsafe manner” under Article 3.2s of F1’s sporting rules, but in truth he was never in any danger of a penalty as, since this race last year, the FIA has left it to the teams to decide when their car is safe or not. This followed Magnussen’s spate of black-and-orange flag interventions for similar endplate damage in 2022.

Ferrari had been “about to take action when the endplate detached” after spotting “a serious deterioration in the data”, per the FIA stewards’ bulletin announcing Leclerc would escape sanction. In any case, the officials and teams all agreed “the detachment of an endplate and the location of its final landing place, was not to be deemed as ‘unsafe’,” since October 2022, according to stewards here.

By the start of lap 19, for all the good work Leclerc was doing with a car he suspected had “other small things that weren't in the right place” to gap Sainz, Verstappen had romped clear. He was 4.6s ahead, but at the end of this tour he headed for the pits to exchange his mediums for one of the two new sets of hards he had available. A surprise two-stop strategy clearly beckoned for the leader.

Photo by: Sam Bloxham / Motorsport Images

Despite Leclerc's pace in the first stint Verstappen was still able to slowly open up his lead

“We went aggressive because the compounds had gone a step down [from last year, C3-C4-C5 vs C2-C3-C4 in 2022] and a one-stop felt like you were hanging on a bit,” Horner explained. “We felt we’d attack the race and Max was very keen to do an attacking strategy, even if it conceded track position to be on the right tyre. That was the plan from Friday.”

This strategy put Verstappen back in the pack, with a 16.0s deficit to Leclerc. In six laps he’d reduced that to 11.5s – all while passing George Russell, Piastri and Ricciardo. By now it was clear Ferrari was aiming to get both its cars (Sainz at this stage still ran second, well down on Leclerc’s “10 or 15 [downforce] points” hobbled SF-23) home on a one-stopper.

This was the quickest route on paper, as it would have replicated Verstappen’s winning soft-medium one-stopper in the lifeless contest here last year. This meant Verstappen likely would’ve had to make another on-track move to get back to the front, which again would have added jeopardy to his victory path and increased Leclerc’s hopes. But that wasn’t too be, thanks to Magnussen’s crash.

Just two laps after Leclerc had finally pitted to get off the mediums on the 31st tour, the Dane hit the Turns 8/9 inside tyre barrier hard after a suspected overheating-related rear suspension failure aboard his Haas. This initially brought out the safety car, while the VF-23’s rear brakes burned in the wreckage.

Verstappen stopped under this caution, essentially sealing the win as he rejoined still ahead, until the decision was made to stop the race so the barriers Magnussen had whacked could be inspected.

“If we pitted [Charles] two laps after, it [would’ve been] with the red flag and we would have restarted from pole,” Ferrari team boss Fred Vasseur said of his team’s strategy timing misfortune. “Races are like this; they have tonnes of events.”

After a 22-minute delay, during which time Ferrari replaced Leclerc’s front wing, the cars formed up again on the grid. Verstappen and Leclerc had kept on the hards they’d fitted just before the red flag and once again the world champion nailed the start.

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Verstappen aced the restart after Magnussen's crash split the race in two

“The three starts we had here were all rocketships,” elucidated Horner.

So, on the same tyres, with no chance of further green-flag pitstops against a car that is vastly superior on in-race tyre management, Leclerc’s victory challenge was over. But his task to keep second had just begun.

Hamilton: Had the chance to push on after Verstappen, but sagely gave up

With Verstappen clear to a 1.3s lead by the end of the first lap post-second start, Leclerc was now much more concerned with Lewis Hamilton’s Mercedes, now shod back on mediums, albeit used ones.

The crash changed this fight in Hamilton’s favour, with an added twist that Leclerc’s stint one mediums pace proved to be his undoing

Hamilton was running third after he had battled by Ricciardo in the early stages after gaining in the aftermath of the Turn 1 crash, then he’d closed right up to Sainz’s rear by lap 16. For seven laps Hamilton threatened closely, before Mercedes pitted him to go from his starting mediums to hards on lap 24, attempting to undercut the second Ferrari.

“When I noticed that I had the pace on Carlos, I knew that with the undercut, it really [could] work quite well,” said Hamilton of his pre-stoppage gains.

Indeed, when Sainz was called in for what had been set to be his sole pitstop, he emerged 6.5s behind Hamilton. But, had Magnussen not crashed, Leclerc’s seven-lap tyre life offset and 2.8s advantage surely would have been enough to keep Hamilton at bay in a one-stop contest.

Mercedes’ lack of straightline speed here was another factor, even though it needed less brake cooling lift-and-coast compared to the Ferraris – judging by how Leclerc dropped back when sat in Hamilton’s wake later on – even with Verstappen’s two-stopper threaded around this battle. But the crash changed this fight in Hamilton’s favour, with an added twist that Leclerc’s stint one mediums pace proved to be his undoing.

Photo by: Andy Hone / Motorsport Images

The red flag swung the Hamilton vs Leclerc battle into the British driver's favour, but he couldn't then take on Verstappen

“The medium compound was the one that performed better,” explained Pirelli motorsport boss Mario Isola. “We saw very low degradation of the medium compound. The track evolution was playing the biggest part of this equation.”

With no rain washing away all the rubber going down last weekend bar the few spots that closed out FP2, the track just came to the mediums even around the scorching 51C race starting track temperatures, as the extra rubber reduced the ever-present risk from graining.

Mercedes had spotted the mediums were “holding on strong in the first stint”, per team boss Toto Wolff. He added: “Charles did 31 laps and didn't really drop off, so that's why we made the call. It was a courageous call from our strategy and tyre people, and it paid off.”

Hamilton’s only remaining hards being seven laps old also played a part in why he took the restart on mediums, with hopes of getting higher immediately that were dashed by Leclerc’s swinging, left-right-left-right-left defence to Turn 1.

But that mattered little as, with his mediums faster up to temperature on the smooth track surface, Hamilton attacked with a bold dive to Turn 1’s inside line at the start of lap 40. Leclerc came cross hard – “but Charles was really fair, great racing” – as Hamilton braved it out with his right-side wheels clipping the grass to seize second.

He put 1.3s into Leclerc on that lap, with Ferrari soon telling its charge that by lap 50 the hards would be faster than the mediums. But this crossover only came “quite late” – per Isola, on lap 67, after many fluctuations between the pair.

By this point Hamilton was 7.6s ahead, a gap boosted by Leclerc’s apparent extra-lift-and-coast requirements. Isola added this was “later than expected because of the lower degradation of the medium”.

Photo by: Sam Bloxham / Motorsport Images

Hamilton conceded that pushing to hunt down Verstappen would have risked killing his tyres and left him exposed

“With the hard, we were never able to restart the tyres,” explained Vasseur. “And we were always on the shy side. It didn't work at all.”

Hamilton set the race’s fastest lap on the final tour. But this raised the question of whether he could have pushed harder earlier to try and pressure Verstappen to the flag, which the Red Bull driver reached with a 13.9s margin. Well, it turns out that Hamilton did try.

“For sure I could have pushed a little bit harder,” he explained. “I did at one time try to see, [thinking] ‘OK, I think I've saved enough [tyre life], let me see if I can try and close this gap to Max’. It was like 10 laps to go and I did a 22.0 and Max did a 21.9. I was like, ‘Nah, I’ll leave it’. He was just cruising at 21.9.

"I had to be cautious. Just careful because obviously my tyres – if I really pushed them for the last 10 laps, they probably would have opened up, and who knows, maybe Charles would have caught me" Lewis Hamilton

“And also, I had to be cautious. Just careful because obviously my tyres – if I really pushed them for the last 10 laps, they probably would have opened up, and who knows, maybe Charles would have caught me up.”

Norris: The eventful race’s biggest unknown threat to Verstappen 

Lando Norris finished just 6.1s behind Sainz in fourth and fifth, having started 17th and battled by Ricciardo and Russell (who jumped the AlphaTauri and Piastri with a great second start launch and some Turn 1 boldness) late on.

This capped a brilliant rise from Norris, which included losing three places to a pre-red flag safety car stop and an awful, wheelspin-heavy second start that shipped four more places.

But Norris just would not be denied – gaining nine spots in the ‘second’ race and doing so all while coping with the same brake temperature management as the rest. His pace from the lap after the second restart to the end came in at a 1m22.924s average, which compares very favourably, all that overtaking considered, to 1m22.582s for Hamilton and even Verstappen’s 1m22.237s.

Photo by: Zak Mauger / Motorsport Images

Norris was always fighting back from a disastrous qualifying that left him 17th at the start

Quite rightly, he rued the Q1 soft tyre mistake in the track’s late quick swoops, which followed McLaren having to pull Norris in to check its fuel system was working properly when he was on a medium-shod banker effort.

Therefore, Norris said afterwards that, despite a race McLaren team boss Andrea Stella called “one of the best of all [he’d seen in F1]” and like the Fernando Alonso Valencia 2012 victory he’d race engineered, the Briton felt he couldn’t “put a smile on my face”. This was after apparently letting down “700-800 people [at McLaren], who are relying on me to do a good job”.

Going back to FP2 again, there Norris had actually shaded Verstappen’s long run on the critical mediums by a 0.274s average. This suggests that he too could have made things harder for the winner had he started anywhere near the top positions. That’s even if it was just forcing the Dutchman to press on with tyres Verstappen said were “giving up” by the time he stopped for the first time.

Yet, for all Norris’s thwarted potential, perhaps the biggest regret for these races that never were goes back to Perez.

He “had two new mediums [left pre-race], so he could've been in good shape”, per Horner, for the second start and ‘second’ race. As, armed with the race’s best tyre on the season’s best car, Perez indeed might have made this race “an interesting afternoon”, again according to Horner, of intra-Red Bull tension.

But it wasn’t to be. Verstappen now has a record-breaking 16 wins in one campaign. Hamilton would “probably put money on it that he’d get to 18, 19, with that car” by the time the season concludes back in Abu Dhabi in three race’s time.

Photo by: Zak Mauger / Motorsport Images

The home fans were left to wonder what could have been if Perez hadn't been booted out at Turn 1