Fantasy booking this weekend’s race – By Joe Murphy.
Max Verstappen is on pole, Charles Leclerc and Lewis Hamilton are just behind. Checo starts the race in 5th. Sandwiched between Lando and Carlos. It’s lights out and away we go…
Immediately, at Turn 1, Max Verstappen spins following a tag from Leclerc’s Ferrari. The damage is terminal whereas Leclerc manages to limp back to the bits. He is dead last.
At the restart, Lewis Hamilton leads Lando Norris and Checo himself. The two Brits also come together and take each other into the gravel. Meanwhile, Lance Stroll retires with mechanical issues.
This time the Red Flag is out meaning an opportunity for an early tyre change on lap 8. Checo goes for the medium tyre commiting to a two stop whereas Fernando Alonso is frustrated having oittenunder the safety car, before the red flag. He is now last.
We restart and the cars hold their positions. George Russell makes a mistake, locking up and running over the grass, and loses places to the Haas and Alpine pair. Oscar Piastri is also forced to retire after damage to his underfloor.
A poor pit stop for Ferrari leaves Sainz’ fuming as all his hard work in the opening stint has been undone.
We head into the final ten laps and the positions look fairly set. Sergio Perez leads by 11 seconds, Leclerc has recovered to be second whilst Yuki Tsunoda finds himself in third. George Russell is closing the gap.
This race is electric, the homeboy is winning. The result looks fairly set. Then, disaster… For Charles! He utters: “I am stupid” over the radio. He has binned it. Gasly in fourth pits as the Safety Car is out whereas Ocon receives a penalty for track limits violations.
Four laps to go, George stays out but he would have overtaken cars ahead of him by now. The Safety Car stays out for the remainder of the race, much to their frustration. It’s confirmed, as they crawl across the line, Sergio Perez WINS the Mexican Grand Prix. Yuki Tsunoda, still in the podium places, comes home in second. And then with George Russell and Gasly breathing down his neck, who is in third? It’s a maiden podium for Nico Hulkenberg. Haas have nailed the strategy today.
Driver of the day goes to Yuki and everyone goes home happy.
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