F1 Grand Prix: Sainz wins in Mexico ahead of Norris

Carlos Sainz won the Mexican Formula 1 Grand Prix on Sunday ahead of Lando Norris, second in the championship and who takes ten points for the world crown from his rival Max Verstappen, 6th after being penalized.

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 on October 20 ahead of Sainz, 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.

Asked about his chances of winning his first F1 title, Norris assured to the boos of the public “to keep a cool head”, a few moments after the finish.

In the championship, the Red Bull driver sees Norris returning to 47 points, while 120 points still remain to be distributed.

Verstappen “dangerous”

When the lights went out, pole sitter Sainz did not hold off Verstappen, second on the grid, for long. 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 Englishman out of track limits but also of having left the track four turns further on, thus gaining a advantage.

For these infractions, the three-time reigning champion – deemed “dangerous” by Norris – 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.

These penalties “were not my biggest problem”, admitted Verstappen, whose RB20 “simply had no rhythm”. The other McLaren on the grid, that of Australian Oscar Piastri, finished 8th.

Alonso power 400

Perched at an altitude of more than 2,000 meters, 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 and last at the wheel of a damaged car – behind Liam Lawson, whose name is regularly cited to replace him in the Austrian team.

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 front, McLaren retains the general reins 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, next weekend in Sao Paulo, Brazil, where F1 will return to sprint mode on Saturday.

AFP

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