Luke’s Weekend Review – Mexico GP 2024

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Mexico GP 2024: Sainz Triumphs Amid Penalties and Battles in Mexico City Showdown

Mexico GP 2024 3

Round 20 has come and go and that was a race to remember as we had action, controversy, and action all over the grid in Mexico City for the Mexico GP.

Ahead of start we get news that Esteban Ocon will be starting in the pit lane as he takes a new energy store and control electronics units under Parc Ferme, Ocon was originally going to start in P19, so this was not going to impact him that much in terms of starting positions.

We see the Top 11 all go for the mediums along with he majority of the drivers with the exception of Liam Lawson in 12th, Valtteri Bottas in 15th, Franco Colapinto in 16th, Sergio Perez in 18th, Zhou Guanyu in 19th and Esteban Ocon in the Pit Lane, who all opted for the white striped hard tyre for the start in an attempt to go long into the first stint.

At lights out we see Carlos Sainz get a decent start however Max Verstappen got a better one and was very soon side by side with Sainz, into Turn 1 we see Verstappen taking the lead as Sainz has to go off track and cut the corner but immediately gave the position back to avoid any penalties. Further back, the start wasn’t as smooth either as we immediately see Yuki Tsunoda spinning out without a rear wheel and go straight into the barriers before Turn 1, Alex Albon was also parked on the side with damage and the race is over immediately for the pair. Upon reviewing the replay we see that Alex Albon got squeezed on both sides and had no where to go as Pierre Gasly was to his right and had moved over slightly left, Albon reacted to Gasly but didn’t realize that Tsunoda was on his left and they made contact and Tsunoda’s wheel came straight off sending him into the spin. This incident immediately brought out the safety car and it neutralised the race immediately.

While under the safety car we see that Sergio Perez was being investigated for a false start and after we see the replay we see that Perez was well out of the grid box and was too far ahead. Perez seem to disagree though as when the team told him that he was under investigation, he was saying it was a great start, but the stewards decided otherwise and handed him a 5 second penalty for this one.

Towards the end of Lap 6 we get the message that the safety car would be coming in that lap after the barriers have been repaired and both Albon’s and Tsunoda’s cars have been cleared. At the stadium section we see Verstappen go and slightly caught Sainz off guard as by Turn 1 he was able to stay ahead of Sainz and by the end of the lap he was able to break DRS as well. This however wasn’t enough for Max as it seems that he used most of his battery in the opening laps of the race after the safety car as on Lap 9 we see Sainz closing in the gap and also got in DRS and managed to get ahead by Turn 1, Verstappen tried to fight back into Turn 2 but the extra dose of DRS helped Sainz stay ahead and back into the lead that he lost on Lap 1.

On Lap 10 we see Lando Norris also catch up to Max Verstappen and the pair were fighting quite hard again as at Turn 4 Norris goes for a move and it seemed that Norris got ahead however Max broke later and both went off track again while Max stayed ahead, Norris was able to get ahead shortly after and at Turn 8, we see Max go for another move and pushes both Lando and himself off track again and Max came out ahead while he was off track. While the pair were off track at Turn 8, Charles Leclerc saw the opportunity and was able to get past the both of them and get into 2nd making it a 1-2 for Ferrari at this stage of the race. For the 2 incidents between Max and Lando, Max managed to get two 10 second penalties, one for forcing a driver off track and one for leaving the track and gaining an advantage. Max was not happy with this decision but put his head down and kept on racing.

On Lap 16 we unfortunately see Fernando Alonso get called into the pits to retire the car due to a brake cooling issue, this is definitely not how he envisioned ending his 400th Grand Prix appearance of his career. Sergio Perez the home hero was up to P11 on Lap 17 and was right on the back of Liam Lawson at this stage trying to get past to get into the points after he had a bad qualifying and started the race in 18th. On Lap 18, Perez goes for a move into Turn 4, and we see Perez get ahead while Lawson had to take to the grass and came back on track and hit Perez into Turn 5 and we see a chunk of carbon fibre come off Perez’s car and Lawson stayed ahead. This damage hurt Perez and immediately was under pressure from Lance Stroll and on Lap 19 Stroll does go for a move, but Perez defends hard, and Stroll goes off track. The stewards investigated Perez for forcing another driver off track but then decided that no further investigation was needed. On Lap 21 Perez came into the pits to get on the mediums and for Red Bull to assess his damage. On the same lap we see a great battle between Oscar Piastri and Franco Colapinto as the 2 battle it out nicely as Piastri was getting past him into 12th place.

Carlos Sainz Claims Victory in Action-Packed Mexico GP as Norris and Leclerc Chase Closely

On Lap 25, we see Norris start closing in once more on Verstappen as Lando had backed off a bit from the earlier battle knowing Verstappen has a 20 second penalty coming when he pits and this meant that we might see some more action between the 2 drivers, however Red Bull thought it’s best to call in their man as his tyres were going off and on Lap 27 Max pits while Norris is freed up to go chasing the Ferraris ahead. Max comes back out in 15th from 3rd due to the penalty he had to serve.

On Lap 29 we see Lewis Hamilton come into the pits and it seemed that around this time was the time to pit as we see a wave of pit stops coming up from Lap 31 as Norris pits from 3rd and comes back out in 4th behind George Russell who was yet to pit. Lap 32 we see both Leclerc and Russell pit and we see Leclerc coming back out in 2nd while Russell pits from 3rd and comes out in 6th behind Piastri, he does clear Piastri and Lawson a couple laps after but does mention to the team why he was called in as he thinks they could have waited a couple more laps. To close off the pits of the front runners we also see Sainz pit from 1st and comes back out in 1st on Lap 33.

Max Verstappen by Lap 33 was already up to P9 however he was a net P6 as cars ahead were yet to pit. A bit further ahead we see Hamilton starting to put pressure on Piastri who at the time was trying to clear Lawson, and Piastri decided that the best way to deal with it was to pass Lawson and that is what he did, Hamilton also passed Lawson on Lap 34 and on Lap 35 he was also able to pass Piastri to get back into 5th behind his teammate. His teammate on Lap 36 comes on the radio and asks the team to check the front wing and we do cut to a clip where the front flap was a bit broken, this would have been hurting his downforce and might come back to bite him later in the race.

Sainz probably had a mini heart attack on Lap 38 as he comes on the radio saying that he had a big misfire out of Turn 3 and asked the team to check the car, I personally thought this might be race over for Sainz but luckily this was nothing serious and Sainz was able to get on with his race. Someone else who was having issues was Colapinto as on Lap 39 he comes on saying his steering keeps going soft to stiff which means he probably had some issues with the power steering. This was also not a fatal issue for Colapinto as he was able to continue with the race.

From the runners who started on hards we see Piastri pit on Lap 40 from 6th to come back out in 13th but with much fresher and grippier tyres so he would be going quite fast now and getting some more overtakes done. On Lap 41 is when we thought we might be getting some rain as Verstappen says it is getting quite dark, the team does assure him that there should be nothing hitting the track but on Lap 43 we hear Russell saying that he got some small rain drops on his visor, Russell doesn’t have the best track record on this as this could have well been sweat again as no other driver mentioned any rain nor did any rain start coming down.

On Lap 45 we see the home hero pit once more given that he pitted quite early and comes back out on fresh mediums but plum last. At the front we see Norris setting up a charge on Leclerc as we see him starting to close in the gap for 2nd place and he started getting fastest lap after fastest lap at this stage. On Lap 50 Sainz comes on the radio saying that he thinks they are pushing too hard and there is no need, but Leclerc had no choice at this stage as he had Norris closing in behind and he was just simply trying to protect his 2nd place. Lap 57 and the gap to Leclerc is now only 2.4 seconds and this was leading up to an interesting battle towards the end of the race, and on Lap 59 we see the gap at 1 second. Lap 62 Norris gets fastest lap again while also getting into DRS and it seems that Leclerc was struggling with tyres a bit and it showed as on Lap 63 we see him lose the rear on the last corner before the main straight and nearly went into the barriers, luckily he was able to hold it and not crash but Norris was able to breeze past and that meant that Leclerc had to settle for 3rd.

Slightly behind we see a Mercedes battle brewing up as well as Hamilton closes in on Russell on Lap 50 and they both get radio messages to keep it clean. This battle went on for a good few laps with Hamilton in DRS and kept trying to make a move while Russell defends well utilizing his battery. On Lap 60 we do see Hamilton and Russell side by side into Turn 6 and Russell stays ahead once more and the battle continues. Lap 66 we see Hamilton finally get past Russell and made the move stick into Turn 1 and goes up to P4. This battle went for a while that it opened up a big gap to 3rd place. Seeing this, Leclerc had asked the team on Lap 64 to think about fastest lap as he had a free pitstop to now Hamilton. Leclerc does get called into the pits on lap 70 to go for the fastest lap and strangely enough Perez was also called into the pits for fastest lap, however I am not sure why Red Bull did this when they saw Leclerc pit ahead of them as Perez was still carrying damage and was not going to be able to get the fastest lap.

At the end we see Carlos Sainz take the chequered flag followed by Lando Norris, Charles Leclerc, Lewis Hamilton, George Russell, Max Verstappen, Kevin Magnussen, Oscar Piastri, Nico Hulkenberg and Pierre Gasly formed the Top 10. Max did a good job coming back up to 6th after getting that 20 second penalty. Piastri also had a good recovery drive up to 8th but worth mentioning the great drive in the last few laps from Magnussen to keep him behind him. Charles Leclerc did get the fastest lap on the last lap and Carlos Sainz gets the Driver of the Day award for the great drive from start to finish to get another victory with Ferrari.

Who do you think was the biggest winners and the biggest losers of the Mexico GP? Sainz managed to get another win for Ferrari which could potentially be his last. We now head to Brazil for the Brazilian GP for the last race of this triple header.

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