Why Renault's engine was so strong in Mexico

It's always difficult to understand exactly why a car performs well on some tracks and badly on others. Normally you can see a trend, and it's true to say that the bigger teams tend to get the most from their respective packages while the small teams occasionally stumble, but Red Bull's dominant form in Mexico requires some explanation.

Over the past five seasons Mercedes has been the yardstick so far as consistency is concerned. Yes it has tripped up a few times, and Mexico was one of those cases, but they have been very rare events - and they have often come at outlier tracks.

Ferrari has improved as the V6 turbo hybrid era has progressed, albeit without achieving the consistency of Mercedes. But then there is Red Bull - often third-best in a three-team fight at the front, but nevertheless an outfit that has won 12 times since 2014.

In the early years this was usually because the others had hit trouble, but this year Red Bull has genuinely had leading pace in both Mexico and Monaco. In Canada and Singapore, the team wasn't far away, but Mexico followed Sochi, Suzuka and Austin - along with Monza, its worst performances of the year.

There is no magic bullet, and usually a combination of factors adds up to the overall performance of the car and driver combination. But for Red Bull, with its Renault engines, there is something that turns up the dimmer switch at tracks such as Mexico.

Without doubt, aerodynamically the car is up there with the best in terms of producing downforce. But if it's really that good, then why, at fast tracks including Suzuka and Austin, is the car not a rocketship? With the high-rake concept, the car could be producing relatively more low-speed downforce than others, and this would be a big help because you spend proportionally more time in slow corners. But there are slow sections at most tracks.

The percentage downforce loss created by the altitude in Mexico City is the same for everyone, so this doesn't account for the step in performance. It doesn't keep all of Red Bull's downforce while others lose it.

The car is very good in slow corners and over the kerbs, which is a big advantage in maximising track width. This improves mid-corner speed and because the car stops bouncing earlier coming off the kerbs, traction is very good at this point. I used to say 'it doesn't matter how much horsepower you have, if you can't get the throttle open you can't use it'.

I don't believe any of that is a big enough advantage to explain the Mexico performance. I think it is more to do with the power units, and what helps them in Mexico and Monaco might just hurt them at other circuits. The turbo and how Red Bull uses the MGU-H is a possibility.

There are two ways to look at this. If Renault's turbocompressor size has a bigger volume of pumping per revolution than others, then at altitude it would have just a little more left to get more boost pressure from the thinner air. And if it was a bigger volume and Renault wasn't running it at as high a speed as others in normal atmospheric conditions, then again there would be a little bit extra to squeeze out of it at high-altitude tracks.

We are not talking about tremendous variations in size - at 120,000 rpm, a very small difference in pumping capacity can make a huge difference to total pumped volume.

I believe Verstappen holding off Hamilton at Turn 1 shows that Red Bull's performance in Mexico has a lot to do with power unit output at altitude

Renault does not have the split turbo concept, which could be a factor. With every positive, there is usually a negative - and if you understand how it all works then perhaps you can find an optimal mix.

But if you are running a bigger turbocompressor, it will take more energy from the exhaust gases to get the same boost pressure, leaving less to create electrical energy from the MGU-H. So, Renault may need to put on its thinking cap to get the best overall season performance.

The exhaust gas flow is what dictates the turbo's speed, so in Mexico, when you don't have the same air density, then the exhaust gas flow will be reduced in turn, reducing the turbo speed. To increase that turbo speed you need to reduce the resistance that the MGU-H puts on the turbo, so the second way to look at it is that if Mercedes and Ferrari are getting more from their MGU-H at normal atmospheric pressure tracks by running the turbo nearer its maximum of 120,000 rpm than Renault does, then in Mexico, with the thinner air, they lose more as the turbo isn't able to work as hard so their MGU-H output drops off, whereas Renault's doesn't as much.

The electrical energy you get from the MGU-H is in excess of the maximum 160bhp electrical energy you can pull from the battery pack, so anything you can do to improve the performance (or lose less) in this area is a big plus. To be able to fight off the Mercedes and Ferrari-engined cars shows that Red Bull gained something, or at least didn't lose as much, in the power stakes.

The start showed that, as a package, the Red Bull-Renault was as strong as the Mercedes or Ferrari on the run to the first corner. Yes, Ricciardo admitted he didn't make a good start, but Verstappen did and the following cars were always going to get a tow down that long straight.

But Verstappen was able to just hold off Hamilton, while Ricciardo was able to stay with him during the race when because of traffic they were both getting DRS. I believe that shows Red Bull's performance in Mexico has a lot to do with power unit output at altitude.

Mercedes and Ferrari will be looking very closely at the GPS data everyone gets from all the cars to judge on-track performance. None more closely than Renault. I'm not sure it really knows the reasons for this step in performance, and to exploit anything you need to understand why.

I don't think Red Bull would have focused its design concept on optimising performance for Mexico and Monaco. It is a team that is competing to win championships and to do that you need to be as competitive as possible at all the different tracks that the season throws at you.

By pioneering the high-rake concept, Red Bull is the team that know best what it wants to get from it - and I'm pretty sure it helps with front-end grip in low-speed corners while keeping a stable rear-end balance in the fast corners.

If you can get this, then you will be able to reduce the inherent slow-speed mid-corner understeer that an F1 car suffers.

Sometimes, but not very often, a car will perform better than expected at a given track, but normally it is the other way around and the performance is worse than expected. Usually, that is because of an unidentified aerodynamic stall problem.

Red Bull is a top team so I'm pretty sure it knew well ahead of time that Mexico would be its best opportunity for a race win, given the power unit situation. By taking pole position and winning the race the team did just that. Ricciardo also temporarily held the fastest lap on 45-lap-old tyres, which is something the others could only dream about.

Hamilton's potential was on the cards way back in 2007 when he showed his mettle up against Alonso at McLaren

Overall, all the Renault power cars performed just that little bit better relative to the opposition, so I believe that further supports the idea that it's something within the Renault engine that made the difference. Red Bull made the biggest step, but that was to be expected if you consider that most people (including Fernando Alonso) would say that the Red Bull is as good as, if not a bit better than, any chassis in the pit lane.

We also finally have a British five-time world champion in Lewis Hamilton. We all knew this was on the cards way back in 2007 when he showed his mettle up against Alonso at McLaren. Hamilton's performances against Alonso brought out a side of the Spaniard we had not seen before.

After his first world title in 2008, Hamilton and McLaren lost their way a bit now and again, and he appeared a bit fragile. But the move to Mercedes and the way the team treats him allowed him to be himself and live his life the way he wants to. As long as he shows up on a Thursday afternoon with all guns blazing, the team is happy.

The performance in Mexico was not really how Hamilton would have liked to have won the championship. Of the top three teams (along with much of the remainder on race day), Mercedes suffered most with tyre graining and degradation, so it will be disappointed in that and there will have to be a period of reflection to understand why.