After a beautiful catch-up race, Verstappen finished third and had Charles Leclerc (second) in his sights, but a virtual safety car situation after Carlos Sainz’s retirement forced him to stop his attack on Leclerc.
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Oscar Piastri finished fifth in Mexico, behind Oliver Bearman (Haas) who finished fourth. As a result, Norris has taken over the lead in the World Cup standings. He has one point more than Piastri. Verstappen follows 36 points from Norris.
Max Verstappen through the grass twice
As so often happens, the initial phase in Mexico provided a lot of spectacle. From pole position, Norris retained the lead, but behind him Verstappen, among others, started the attack. The Red Bull driver tried around the outside, was pushed a little further out by Leclerc (second) and then drove through the grass. Verstappen was third for a moment, but that place was taken over again by Lewis Hamilton later in the lap.
George Russell, who started fourth, felt that Verstappen should give his place back to him, because the Dutchman had driven through the grass, even though Verstappen was already ahead of Russell at that time. The stewards therefore did not intervene.
The fight continued in the sixth round. Verstappen opened the attack on Hamilton and the two hit each other, after which the Limburger made another trip through the grass. That was not the end of it, because Hamilton braked and also ended up off the track. Because he did benefit from this, he was given a 10-second time penalty. The race management also looked at Verstappen’s excursion and the touch with Hamilton, but those moments went unpunished.
Haas driver Oliver Bearman is advancing
Behind it, Oliver Bearman (Haas) benefited from the battle between Hamilton and Verstappen and took fourth place from the reigning champion. Verstappen – unlike the drivers around them, started on the medium tire instead of the softest rubber – stated shortly afterwards that he again had little grip and his tires were getting too hot. In that phase he rode the same pace as the Bearman in front of him.
World Cup leader Piastri, who started seventh, lost two places in the initial phase. It took until the eleventh lap before he moved up one place, at the expense of Verstappen’s teammate Yuki Tsunoda. Top favorite Norris had no pain at the front after his successful start and after nineteen laps he already had a lead of more than eight seconds over Leclerc.
Because the drivers around him made a pit stop earlier, Verstappen came second after more than thirty laps (after Leclerc’s stop). His deficit to the leading Norris was almost half a minute. The Briton came in for his pit stop after lap 34, but retained first place.
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Far behind, Piastri and the penalized Hamilton tried to get forward. Verstappen made his pit stop after 37 of the 71 laps, switched to softs and fell back to eighth place, behind Hamilton. Bearman took third place, with both Mercedes drivers and Piastri behind him.
Catching up with Max Verstappen
Verstappen had a clear advantage on that soft tire. He overtook Hamilton on lap 47 to take over seventh place. Immediately afterwards, Hamilton and Piastri and Antonelli, driving ahead of Verstappen, made their second pit stop, to switch back to the softs. A lap later, Bearman and Russell did the same, allowing Verstappen to take back third place.
Red Bull’s choice for a 1-stopper therefore turned out excellently. Verstappen had a firm grip on third place and was closing in on Leclerc every lap. With twelve laps to go, Piastri took over fifth place from Russell.
Encouraged by his race engineer Gianpiero Lambiase, Verstappen fought for what he was worth. Just when he was almost in Leclerc’s gearbox, on the penultimate lap, the virtual safety car prevented a definitive attack.