Why F1's Mexico GP wasn't as boring as everyone made out

A scroll through social media has told me I’m in the very small minority here. A cursory chat with my Autosport colleagues also indicates I’m in the wrong. Nevertheless, I really don’t think last weekend’s Mexican Grand Prix was the irredeemably dull race it’s been made out to be.

Sure enough, it fell well short of some of the safe bet measures of gauging a thrilling contest. Sadly, there was no wheel-to-wheel scraps for the lead as per Bahrain, Saudi Arabia, and Austria earlier this season. Nor was there the sort of mesmeric recovery drive that Max Verstappen turned in at Spa to charge from 14th on the grid to victory. Aside from Daniel Ricciardo clumsily tipping Yuki Tsunoda into retirement, there wasn’t even a gratuitous shunt to trigger a game-changing safety car. Still, that’s not to mean that this was a total write-off.

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For starters, the race will be considered in isolation. The Mercedes threat for the win soon dissipated when Lewis Hamilton bolted on a set of hard Pirellis before George Russell did similar - despite being happy to extend his stint on the mediums, showing sound pace and even telling the pitwall to leave him out until he could jump to softs. Still, the possibility alone of the Silver Arrows being in the hunt was enough to prevent any heavy eyes.

Undoubtably, the spectacle would have been improved tenfold should either of the W13s got within DRS range and even had a sniff up the inside of Verstappen to take the triumph. But, even through the lull when race engineer Peter Bonnington wasn’t doing the most convincing job of persuading Hamilton that his white-walled rubber would soon come into its own, the sense that there just might be a late crescendo was entertaining enough.

Kudos here should go to the Radio 5 Live commentary team, which spent a fair chunk of the airtime debating the pros and cons of the Mercedes strategy call. The insight from ex-F1 driver Jolyon Palmer made for compelling listening over the top of the live TV feed. Perhaps that's why there was no desperate desire to go and put the kettle on.

While polesitter Verstappen was ultimately able to cruise to a largely dominant victory (once he’d got over his frustrations about the soft tyre wearing in the opening stint), the prospect of him eventually being challenged was enough to keep engaged. Not dissimilarly, any kind of cold war is not an unterrifying thought simply because there is no definitive climax. Threats alone are worth considering.

Then rate the Mexican GP in context. At least there was some hope of a multi-car battle for the lead to cling on to unlike in Australia. That seems to be the real turkey of the F1 season for how Charles Leclerc scampered off and looked unimpeachable all day, even if the bigger picture painted back then was of a truly titanic two-way fight between Ferrari and Red Bull. Miami was arguably more of a snooze fest too once Ferrari’s tyre wear woes left it to Verstappen to take control of proceedings and run unencumbered to the flag.

The potential threat of Mercedes preventing another Verstappen victory kept some Mexican GP interest

Photo by: Sam Bloxham / Motorsport Images

The drama of Leclerc’s engine failure in Azerbaijan, the rain in Monaco, Leclerc crashing out of the lead at Paul Ricard all stole the headlines to mask rounds that were, in this writer’s opinion, more humdrum than the 71 laps at the Autodromo Hermanos Rodriguez.

Several more grands prix might have been lumped into that category too were it not for the late-race safety cars that turned events on their head. Monza was one, thanks to Ricciardo pulling up to spark the question of whether Leclerc might overthrow Verstappen only for the race to ultimately end under neutralised conditions. And, despite the litany of shunts in Singapore, that too wasn’t a blockbuster. Just a messy one.

Had Fernando Alonso parking up with cylinder failure at Turn 1 last weekend triggered a full safety car rather than only a virtual one, perhaps the Mercedes drivers would have blown the contest wide open had they been artificially allowed to close to the leading Red Bull.

Undoubtably, the spectacle would have been improved tenfold should either of the W13s got within DRS range and even had a sniff up the inside of Verstappen to take the triumph

The alternative is for every round to be hectic. But then the shine soon wears off. See Formula E changing its qualifying format to produce repeat winners rather a random rollcall of victors to rob the season of any clear plot thread. For, to amend a line from ‘The Incredibles’, when every race is super, none of them are.

Despite Verstappen and his team running away with both titles this year, those championship snapshots belie a 2022 season packed with talking points (last weekend had the cost cap penalty, Red Bull boycotting Sky Sports and the resolution to the shambolic handling of the Alpine-Haas US GP protests already) and decent races. Mexico was by no means a vintage affair, just not the stinker it’s been unfairly made out to be.

Verstappen's historic 14th win was not necessarily the most dull race of the year

Photo by: Andy Hone / Motorsport Images