Carlos Sainz won the Mexican Formula 1 Grand Prix on Sunday ahead of Lando Norris, second in the championship and who takes ten points from his rival for the world crown Max Verstappen, 6th after being penalized. Carlos Sainz, new hero of Mexico! In the cauldron of the Autodromo Hermanos Rodriguez, the Spaniard dominated a race with twists and turns to win with almost five seconds ahead of Norris at the end of this 20th round out of 24 of the season.
Winner in Austin last Sunday, Monegasque Charles Leclerc, 2nd for a long time, finally finished 3rd. The Ferrari driver notably made an error less than ten laps from the end of the race for the benefit of Norris, the main competitor of championship leader Verstappen. In the championship, the Red Bull driver sees Norris returning to 47 points, while 120 points still remain to be distributed until the last round of the season, in Abu Dhabi at the beginning of December.
Twenty second penalty for Verstappen
When the lights went out, pole sitter Sainz did not hold off Max Verstappen for long, second on the grid. At the end of the long starting straight, the Dutchman regained the reins of the race while the Spaniard made a mistake.
Leading the GP for nine laps (out of 71) – the majority of which passed behind the safety car after the collision between the Japanese Yuki Tsunoda (Racing Bulls) and Alexander Albon (Williams) – the reigning champion then gradually fell back: first overtaken by Sainz, “Mad Max” then jostled with Norris to maintain his second place. But that was without counting on Leclerc who, 4th and opportunistic, took advantage of the battle between the Dutchman and the Briton to overtake them.
In his duel against Norris, Verstappen also lost big since the stewards found him guilty of having pushed the Briton out of track limits but also of having left the track four turns further on, thus gaining an advantage . For these infractions, the Dutchman received two penalties of ten seconds each, carried out during his first pit stop. Coming out 15th, he finally finished 6th in the GP, behind the two Mercedes of Lewis Hamilton and George Russell. Seventh, the Dane Kevin Magnussen (Haas) posted his best performance of the year in Mexico, ahead of the other McLaren on the grid, that of the Australian Oscar Piastri, 8th.
Red Bull downgrades, Alonso powers 400
Perched at more than 2,000 meters above sea level, the approximately 154,000 spectators gathered around the Mexican circuit were all committed to the cause of national star Sergio Pérez, in a football stadium atmosphere. Their fervor, however, was not enough for the Red Bull driver, who, starting from a very distant 18th place on the grid, finished 17th. Like his teammate Verstappen, Pérez also received a 5-second penalty for being incorrectly placed on the starting grid.
This new poor performance from the Mexican causes his team to lose its provisional second place in the constructors’ championship, to the benefit of Ferrari, which is now 25 points ahead of Red Bull. At the forefront, McLaren, which became the leading force on the field in mid-September to the detriment of the reigning champion team, retains the reins of the general ahead of the Scuderia, which it trails by 29 points. Among the French Alpine, Pierre Gasly crossed the finish line 10th and gave his team its first point since the Dutch GP at the end of August. Esteban Ocon finished 13th after starting from the pit lane.
For his 400th GP weekend in F1, Spaniard Fernando Alonso (Aston Martin) had to retire. If he has “only” 396 starts for the moment, the 43-year-old double world champion should pass the symbolic milestone of 400 starts during the Qatar GP in early December, a first in the history of F1. The season continues with a third race in a fortnight, scheduled for next weekend in Sao Paulo, Brazil, where F1 will return to sprint mode on Saturday.
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