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1200 kilometres separate Austin
from Mexico City, but on the racetrack not that much seems to have changed
since last week. A Ferrari won in Texas and a Ferrari won in the Mexican
capital. This time it was Carlos Sainz first past the chequered flag, while
team-mate Charles Leclerc came home third. Splitting the two Italian cars
was Lando Norris. For the Spaniard, this was career win number four, the
second this season after Melbourne. It is the 248th win for Ferrari, the
second in a row and the fifth this year, and the most wins it has scored in
a season since 2018. It is also the Scuderia’s third win on the track named
after the Rodriguez brothers, following on from victories for Jacky Ickx in
1970 and Alain Prost in 1990.
Verstappen’s lead in the Drivers’ classification has now come down to 47
points ahead of Norris and 71 more than Leclerc. In the Constructors’
standings, McLaren still leads on 566 points while Ferrari has 537 and has
moved ahead of Red Bull who are now third on 512.
THE DAY ON
TRACK:
14 drivers opted to start on the Medium, while six (Perez, Ocon, Colapinto,
Lawson, Bottas and Zhou) went with the Hard. The Safety Car was required
right from the opening lap following the collision between Tsunoda and
Albon, which led to both of them retiring. In the first few laps after the
restart, the race was action-packed with drivers passing and repassing,
giving the Stewards plenty of work to do… Then the race settled down,
especially the leading positions, before springing back to life in the
closing stages with duels between Leclerc and Norris and the Mercedes pair.
The only unusual aspects were Verstappen’s climb through the field, having
dropped down the order with a double penalty totalling 20 seconds, before he
eventually made it up to sixth place. There was also a long distance chess
game as some drivers tried to gain, or stop others from gaining, the extra
point for the race fastest lap.
Piastri drove the longest stint on the Medium, doing the opening 39 laps on
a set of the C4. The longest stint of all on one set of tyres came from one
of the specialists in this discipline, namely Bottas who ran 49 laps on the
Hard.
Aside from the final pit stops at the very end in the chase for the fastest
lap time, all the drivers ran a one-stop race with the exception of Perez
who, starting down the back, tried something different.
MARIO ISOLA - MOTORSPORT DIRECTOR
"A race that provided plenty of excitement right from the start, before
gradually settling down, at least as far as the leaders were concerned,
before livening up again towards the finish with duels between Leclerc and
Norris and an even longer one between Hamilton and Russell. There was plenty
of action behind the top five, and at the very end, several drivers pitted
for fresh tyres to go for the fastest race lap.
“In terms of strategy, the predictions going into the event were confirmed,
with the one-stop being the outright favourite and starting on the Medium
before switching to the Hard proving to be the quickest of all the various
combinations. Piastri was a good example of this, because even starting from
a long way back on the grid, he adopted the same strategy as those at the
front and was able to finish in the points.
“Usually, one-stop races require careful tyre management, but today we saw
that the drivers were able to push without worrying too much about
degradation, which was very limited on both compounds. The Medium showed a
few signs of graining, but that did not affect performance excessively,
while the Hard always performed well, even for those running the longest
stints which came close to the 50 laps mark."
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