The nine reasons why the 2022 Mexican GP wasn’t a better F1 race

Expectations of a thrilling contest were high heading into Formula 1’s 2022 Mexico City Grand Prix.

Dominant title winner Max Verstappen may have secured a sixth pole of his campaign of campaigns, but there was a serious threat from two rival cars in between him and team-mate Sergio Perez on the grid. Plus, this race had not been won from pole in six years, the long run to Turn 1 making things harder for the polesitter punching the first hole through the air having much to do with that stretch.

The boisterous crowd and a colourful grid set-up charged the atmosphere, with Perez’s every move applauded and chanted. But it was the possibility of Mercedes taking a first 2022 victory that made this race so different to the 19 that had come before, with Ferrari a rare non-factor.

It wasn’t to be, the contest ultimately lifeless, with Verstappen securing a 14th victory of his second title-winning season ahead of Lewis Hamilton. In doing so he set a new record for most victories in one F1 championship.

But it was still Mercedes’ strongest showing of 2022 given its strategy briefly looked like having the upper hand and it had the pace to threaten Verstappen’s pole-clinching run in qualifying too. There were several reasons why – the first of which being the much-discussed altitude factor at the Autodromo Hermanos Rodriguez, which negated the W13’s ongoing drag issues with its thin air at 7350ft above sea level.

So, the race rather fizzled out on-track, before the chaotic celebration scenes enlivened things again. And here are nine reasons why the promise wasn’t delivered, leaving podium party memories instead of a classic race.

Dry and sunny conditions played a key role in the Mexican GP weekend

Photo by: Zak Mauger / Motorsport Images

1. Lack of overnight rain hitting the track cements one-stop top strategy

The general expectation heading into the race was that it would be a two-stop affair, if the drivers eschewed tyre management and pushed on – taking life out of rubber that generally doesn’t suffer thermal degradation here, surface stress the worry instead. At the same time, a one-stopper was feasible if the compounds were brought in gently and treated well over a stint, with sliding minimised.

But that was put at serious risk by the possibility of rain soaking the 2.67-miles of parkland circuit in east Mexico City. It had been deluged by precipitation on Thursday night as paddock personnel enjoyed a welcome party laid on by the race promoter – many, including Autosport, in fancy dress to celebrate this race’s 60th anniversary. But after that, threatening clouds had not put down more than a few drops all weekend.

After Verstappen had taken pole on Saturday and as the city’s inhabitants partied at the legendary and lavish Day of the Dead parade, thunderstorms broke out. But they were very localised, with the track only being hit by a small amount of rain and just on its western flank.

“The track evolution is quite high here in Mexico,” said Pirelli motorsport boss Mario Isola, explaining why a two-stopper had not ultimately emerged as the preferred strategy. “If they are starting with a green track [reset by rain] that would affect the degradation of the tyre in a different way.”

It wasn’t to be, with the track on race day actually in even better condition as the heat was down 10C and 3C from the minimum and peak track temperatures respectively in qualifying, which meant less rear axle sliding. But a one-stopper starting on the softs and going to the mediums still represented a “risk” – per Red Bull team boss Christian Horner, whose squad nevertheless went for it with both cars “following Dietrich Mateschitz’s mantra of ‘no risk, no fun’”.

Ferrari was way off the pace all weekend, meaning it was a two-team fight at the front

Photo by: Sam Bloxham / Motorsport Images

2. Ferrari not making the battle a three-way fight

For the first time in 2022, Ferrari ended up posing no threat to Red Bull in either qualifying or the race. Although it lost at Budapest, Zandvoort and Austin too, with Mercedes beating it to second place in that trio of races, Ferrari had at least been one of a pole threat, the pole winner or a possible race winner.

In Mexico, it was nowhere either on one-lap speed or race pace. There were several causes for this underwhelming display – a far cry from its FP1-topping form, when Carlos Sainz led Charles Leclerc.

“The ride was not great, the balance was not great,” team boss Mattia Binotto said of the horrid handling the F1-75s displayed all weekend. That was in peak downforce for qualifying and the race, Ferrari having tried its low-drag arrangement for FP2, when Leclerc crashed heavily during the 2023 tyre test.

The red machines just didn’t turn in as snappily as their rivals in blue and silver, and bucked and slid horribly if they ran hard over the kerbs through the second sector’s fast, sweeping sequence. But it was all underpinned by a bigger problem.

With their turbo power turned down – if paddock speculation is to be believed, in fear of the fiery exit to Sainz’s Austria race reoccurring at a much greater altitude – the Ferraris were slow off the corners and didn’t trouble the speed trap’s leading figures.

“We are not as efficient or we didn't have the capacity at least to run maximum power here,” Binotto explained.

The result was a lonely, anonymous race for the Scuderia and F1 robbed of a potential exciting three-way victory fight. Sainz led home Leclerc by 10.7s, a minute back from Verstappen’s first place, having seen off his team-mate’s Turns 4-6 attack on the opening lap once Valtteri Bottas’s Alfa Romeo had been passed in a neat outside-Turn-1 Leclerc swoop.

Mercedes focused on race strategy starting on the mediums compared to Red Bull's soft tyre first stint

Photo by: Steven Tee / Motorsport Images

3. Mercedes went the wrong way on the first stint strategy

“I had a gut feeling that they would be on the soft to start with,” Hamilton would tell the post-race press conference of the moment when the first stint strategy tyres are finally revealed on the grid.

“At that moment,” Hamilton continued, “I thought that we may be in trouble. But then again, it's a long race, so I thought maybe they'll be on a two-stop.”

Given the decision to start on the soft C4 rubber, Verstappen had to produce a very canny race, underpinned by smart tyre management. The mediums would provide better durability and the soft, especially as stint one tyre with the full 100kg fuel load aboard, would be vulnerable to graining. That hadn’t been seen in practice but is a regular feature of the Mexico races – exacerbated in 2022 because of the understeer characteristics the compounds currently have at lower-speed corners.

“Not warming them up too quickly, making sure there was longevity to them,” Horner said of how Verstappen had to drive in the first stint. This was extended to lap 25 even as he complained of his left-front feeling “dead” due to the graining, required to make things easier on the mediums he would take to the finish.

Horner called Mercedes’ decision to try a medium-hard one-stopper “conservative” and, with hindsight’s benefit, the Silver Arrows squad agreed.

“If we could run the race again, we'd have started on the soft tyre,” said the team’s director of trackside engineering, Andrew Shovlin. “We knew that a soft-medium one-stop was a possibility, but we did not expect it to be quite so comfortable…”

12 months on from Verstappen bolting by two Mercedes into Turn 1, he kept clear of both Silver Arrows this time

Photo by: Sam Bloxham / Motorsport Images

4. The start couldn’t really have gone better for Red Bull

We’ll get to the additional reasons why Verstappen’s eventual winning strategy came off so smoothly, but it can’t be overstated in saying that his driving in the race’s opening seconds was “crucial” – as he put it – to the final result.

Having proved 12 months ago here that a stunning run and pass into the first corner can be the making of a Mexican GP victory from off the front row, Verstappen understood defence was required off the line. This, he said, was made worse by “a small mistake with the [clutch] release” that left him stuttering fractionally when the lights went out.

But it was barely noticeable from the outside and “still good enough” to ensure he could swing across the bows of his fellow front-row starter George Russell and hug the inside line all the way to the first corner. There, with Russell having moved left to look to the outside, Verstappen ran wide to the edge of the track and obliged the Mercedes to follow him tight on the Turn 2 inside kerbs.

Russell was doubly in a bind because Hamilton had been able to swiftly nip through the inside line at Turn 1 and so was alongside his momentum-shorn team-mate on turn-in for the second corner. Here, Russell made a decision that made Mercedes’ race much harder.

“I've had a bit of a scrappy last three races,” he said of his thinking at this vital, fleeting point of the race. “That was probably a factor of taking it too cautiously.”

Aware Hamilton was the one on his outside, Russell jumped hard across the kerbs. This allowed his team-mate a smooth run through Turn 3, where, although Russell’s line meant he could get on the gas and come back alongside the other Mercedes, Hamilton’s position on the racing line meant the younger Briton ran onto more kerbs.

This again cost him momentum and Perez, having kept a watching brief behind the leaders through the opening corners after pulling out of Hamilton’s slipstream rather early on the run to Turn 1, powered by down the second straight. He sealed his move into third when Russell braked early for Turn 4 and set off after Hamilton.

The seven-time world champion was 1.4s behind Verstappen at the end of lap one of 71, which stopped him being in DRS range when the overtaking aid was activated one tour later.

The Red Bull’s straightline speed prowess aided the leader’s pace through the next 20 laps – Verstappen was metronomic in producing times in the low 1m23s, other than one-offs in the middle part of that bracket due to whacking the Turn 3 kerbs too hard on lap 4 and sliding wide, and a 1m22.9s visit on lap 15 – just after Red Bull had asked him to push to snap the tow helping keep Hamilton close.

Verstappen was able to maintain a gap to Hamilton throughout the early stages

Photo by: Zak Mauger / Motorsport Images

“It definitely was surprising to see how consistent he was able to keep it,” Hamilton said of his rival’s stint one pace.” In the early phase I'm sure he was managing a little bit [even a 1m23s-flat was five-seconds slower than Verstappen’s pole-winning time], but I could tell that they had the upper hand in that first stint. But then towards the end I started to close up a little bit.”

The gap between Hamilton and Verstappen had fluctuated across this phase – gradually creeping up to a maximum of 2.4s before coming down to 1.7s as the graining made life hard for the Dutchman just as he was working to “extend a few laps” using the previous buffer he’d built up. On laps 22 and 23 he was firmly back in the mid-1m23s, and then dropped to a 1m23.8s.

“The last few laps were a bit tough with the soft tyres,” he explained. “[But] it was all about just getting to that certain number of laps.”

At his stop, Verstappen moved to the mediums and got turned around in 2.5s. This was twice as fast as Red Bull had managed with Perez two tours before – the Mexican driver also dealing with graining while running four seconds behind Hamilton.

“[It] looks like the nut actually stuck, or wouldn’t undo cleanly,” Horner suggested about why Perez’s soft left-rear had been so slow coming off. That would come back to bite Red Bull later in the race, but Perez’s presence behind Hamilton – and not Russell – was a problem even as the longevity benefit provided by the mediums played out with the two silver cars now leading the race.

“I kept telling them the tyre was fine,” Hamilton said of his five-lap stint at the head of the pack.

But, during this period, Perez had been lighting up the timing screens with series of personal bests even while passing the yet-to-stop Leclerc and being briefly held up by Sainz too. He was therefore getting into undercut range, which would have left Hamilton needing to pass a much slipperier car even with a tyre-life-age advantage late on.

“They were coming into my window,” he explained. “Sergio had already stopped. They were going much quicker than me. So, if we stayed out longer, I would have come out behind Sergio and it would have been all over. I was basically tag-teamed by the Red Bulls. It’s very hard in strategy when you don’t have both cars there.”

Mercedes therefore opted to pit Hamilton at the end of lap 29, with Russell – 1.8s behind Perez when the Red Bull stopped – staying out leading in turn until lap 34. They were both given the hards for the second stint, which Mercedes initially believed was a race-winning move.

A mid-race clutch issue gave Verstappen a brief fright

Photo by: Zak Mauger / Motorsport Images

5. Verstappen’s gearshifts glitch wasn't a bigger problem

But before tyre performance returned to being the oh-so-glamourous main reason for any one driver’s success of the leading foursome, there was briefly a time where Verstappen might have lost the race.

This was three laps after his stop when he reported “the [gear] shifts are shit again”. The thin air might make things an easier challenge for draggier packages, but it can be a car killer. However, it wasn’t to be a terminal issue for Verstappen, who explained: “Just after the pitstop, I think the clutch was a bit warm. And after that it was OK.”

But had Verstappen dropped out of the race with gearbox gremlins, that would have left Hamilton leading but under severe pressure from Perez and the packed crowd braying for a late-race battle. In any case that didn’t come about and again the atmospheric conditions here made the difference.

Perez was hamstrung by a typical Mexican GP characteristic in his pursuit of Hamilton

Photo by: Andy Hone / Motorsport Images

6. Cooling concerns stop Perez attacking Hamilton

Hamilton had rejoined with a 6.5s gap to Verstappen and 2s back to Perez but, as ever with the white-walled rubber, the hards took a bit of time to get up to temperature. Here, Red Bull rued Perez’s long stop, as he felt Hamilton “was struggling in the early laps with the hard tyre and that was our opportunity [to attack]”.

He never got another one, despite also never getting dropped. This was because “once you get [the hards] going, he seemed to pull away a bit”, Perez reflected, but also because the altitude here stifles racing due to the exertions applied to car cooling.

“Unfortunately, there was not much I could do because every time I was getting close to him, things were overheating: brakes, engine, tyres,” Perez explained. “So, I had very few chances to attack him. I used DRS a few times but no more than that.”

Mercedes medium-hard tyre strategy didn't pay off as expected

Photo by: Steven Tee / Motorsport Images

7. Mercedes’ strategy expectations didn’t come off

Like Ferrari in 2022, previously Mercedes’ engines would struggle in Mexico City. But gains the team had made – “pushing the boundaries to give the maximum performance”, according to team boss Toto Wolff – were another key factor in why Mercedes was a real contender last weekend.

It was also feeling the benefit of its Austin floor and front wing upgrade “delivering a good step in performance”, according to Shovlin.

Mercedes therefore had Hamilton and Russell pressing on using the hards – a strategy call it went for as its “models said that a soft-hard would go”, per Wolff, with Mercedes starting on mediums in any case for added durability, and because its “models didn’t say that a soft-medium would go”. But while the C2 hard’s longevity is certain, Isola explained that its “level of grip is not really known”.

Just like for Ferrari in Hungary, this was a key part of Mercedes undoing: it wasn’t fast enough, even here with a tyre-life offset. And it was also wrong on Red Bull’s mediums potentially dropping off badly at the end of the race.

Mercedes was “convinced that the medium was having a cliff in the last part,” per Isola, so much so it refused Russell’s requests to switch strategy even as he ran 4s behind Perez and with over 30s in hand over Sainz in the closing stages.

Mercedes hoped Perez would run out of tyre performance and when he didn’t it finally pitted Russell for softs, with enough time left to make a successful raid for the fastest lap bonus point on the last tour.

The threat of a late safety car and restart didn't come after swift work by the marshals to collect Alonso's Alpine

Photo by: Carl Bingham / Aston Martin

8. Alonso’s retirement triggers just a VSC

On lap 64, with Verstappen 13s ahead of Hamilton, Fernando Alonso retired in the runoff behind Turn 1, 13 tours after first losing one of his engine’s six cylinders.

This was a dangerous spot given the quickest cars down the main straight were arriving at 222mph. So, with marshals required to go out and retrieve the stricken Alpine, it would have been understandable for FIA officials to have sent out the safety car to bring those speeds down.

Instead, they opted for a virtual safety car, which lasted just under two minutes as Alonso’s car was swiftly moved to safety. This reduced the teams’ willingness to make a late extra stop, with Perez’s position in any case snookering Mercedes in definitely not being able to stop Hamilton here. Red Bull also felt things were “sufficiently late not to do it”, per Horner.

That all meant there was to be no late restart drama.

Verstappen's tyre whispering set up his comfortable run to victory

Photo by: Steven Tee / Motorsport Images

9. Verstappen is tyre management master in the season’s dominant car

All while Hamilton was questioning Mercedes’ decision to run the hards and it was insisting its analysis predicted the Red Bulls losing out late on, Verstappen was serenely running away with the race, eventually winning by 15.2s.

Over the whole of his rival’s second stint, he pulled away from Hamilton by 0.189s on average each time – the VSC-impacted tours notwithstanding – lapping everyone up to Leclerc in sixth as he did so. He hadn’t wanted to touch the hards after feeling his FP1 sampling “just didn't really feel great”.

The RB18’s higher downforce aided tyre wear given the handling benefits that brings even though the thin air reduces that effect. Plus, it could ride the kerbs well enough to minimise the critical sliding factor.

“When [the stint one softs] came off the car, there was still a lot of life left in them,” Horner concluded of Verstappen’s tyre prowess. “That gave us even more confidence that the medium tyre would be fine as a one-stop. It was a question of again just not abusing that tyre, which is something he’s been masterful at this year.”

Verstappen's 14th win of 2022 breaks the record for most victories in an F1 season

Photo by: Zak Mauger / Motorsport Images