Mexico: The Hits and Misses of the Editorial Team

The Top 3

The durability of Dur tires

Since the first free practice session, the teams knew that the key to success would revolve around the tires. The sessions were studious, as all the teams extensively tested all the tire compounds to optimize the race strategy. All except one, Ferrari, which never used the hard tire, synonymous with durability and performance during the race.

Lewis Hamilton’s engineer surprised everyone by calling him in relatively early in the race to switch to hard tires. The choice paid off, as these tires provided performance in a sustainable manner. We saw this with Daniel Ricciardo and Max Verstappen. The latter, in fact, completed almost the entire race on his set of hard tires.

Sergio Perez has a solid race

Sergio Perez, the local of the event, completed a solid race. He finishes his race in 7th place. The best result he could hope for as he completed these 71 laps as the “best of the rest”. His progress was gradual, consistent, and he made no mistakes. He even managed to push Daniel Ricciardo into making a mistake towards the end of the Grand Prix to maintain his position.

Daniel Ricciardo, the strategy paid off

The Australian driver led a brilliant race. A misstep at the end of the race against Sergio Perez on a braking that was too late, but without consequence, will deprive him of the 7th place.

After difficult qualifying sessions, he chose to start the race on hard tires. A gamble that would pay off as this compound proved to be both performant and durable. While his competitors had to deal with average performance and rapid degradation of the medium tires at the start of the race, Ricciardo kept the possibility of finishing the race on medium tires to secure a fine 8th place.

The Flop 3

Max Verstappen, a messy weekend

Until the final qualifying round, Max Verstappen had a rather studious and encouraging Mexican weekend. He was even in provisional pole position at the end of the first part of Q3.

It was without taking into account the return of his old demons, which somewhat marred his performance. He admitted not slowing down after the yellow flags triggered by Valtteri Bottas’s accident. This earned him a penalty of 3 places on the starting grid and 2 points deducted from his super license. The Dutchman repeats the same mistakes over the years…

In the race, even though his climb to 6th place was well managed, he made a too aggressive start, as often. A start that pushed him to the depths of the standings after a collision with Hamilton and then a puncture against Bottas. Considering Alexander Albon’s performance on Sunday, Verstappen could clearly have aimed for a podium without his recurring mistakes.

McLaren, a race to forget

After promising qualifying sessions, we expected better for the team. Carlos Sainz was 4th at the end of the first lap. He will finish in an anonymous 13th place. For Norris, the race was a nightmare. Without pace for a while, he was even let down by his mechanics during a complicated tire change. He will be the first to retire from this race, the only one alongside Kimi Räikkönen. A very disappointing outcome for a team that deserved better considering the qualifying results.

Romain Grosjean and Robert Kubica, a battle for the last place

Romain Grosjean had announced a difficult weekend. The Haas has never performed on this track, and since the beginning of the year, the team has been unable to make this car work. But the Frenchman had to battle with the Williams cars for a long time during the race and couldn’t find the pace to at least be ahead of his teammate. Kevin Magnussen finishes almost 50 seconds in front of him. George Russell will also be better classified than our Frenchman.

Robert Kubica also had a very average race. Just like Grosjean, he is behind the wheel of a failed car but is regularly outperformed by his teammate. The Pole continues to deliver poor performances in races. The end of the year looks challenging for him.