Mexico GP Race Report

Yet another first lap full of action, bringing out the safety car.   Ricciardo made contact with pole-sitter Bottas, Tsunoda went out, as did Mick Schumacher.  Ricciardo and Bottas had to go to the pits.  Vestappen was the winner, going into this pause in the lead.  Bottas, losing out going from the front to the back, had a scary moment as he sat facing the oncoming traffic.  Ocon also had a hairy time with an Alpha Tauri and Haas simultaneously going over top of him.

During the first stint, there was lots of overtaking through the field.  Particularly past the Williams who did not have a good package this weekend.

Having not pitted, Perez led his home track race briefly.  The crowd was quite excited.  There was further bad luck for Bottas with a 12 second pitstop.  Mercedes will be hoping that Russell generally has a better time of things.

With a confident lead, Verstappen did what he always does and started to hunt for potential problems, radioing in to inquire about tires and vibrations and other little niggles.

At the tail end of the race, certain drivers were frantically chasing others.  Perez was hot on the heels of Hamilton, who was beginning to sound very nervous on the radio.  LeClerc was told to move over and give Sainz a go at getting past Gasly, who had a very quiet yet successful race in 4th.  At the bottom of the points was a trio of champions, Vettel, Raikkonen and Alonso.  In a move that some might consider petty, Mercedes pulled Bottas into the pits for fresh tires to attempt a fastest lap.  In P14, he wouldn't get to keep the point but Verstappen wouldn't either and in the end, he didn't even manage it.  So the team  brought him in again for new tires, kept him in longer to position him better relative to others.  Sainz also didn't manage to get past Gasly so gave the place back to LeClerc.   Everyone was still confident that Perez would still be able to get past Hamilton on the final lap.  He couldn't manage it.  Bottas did scrape Fastest Lap in the end.

As the flag was waved by an "internaional DJ", the Williams pair were plum last.  Verstappen parked his car on the tongue of some Mexican Heineken dragon.  Perez' dad was allowed out to the stadium section were the podium was held and went bananas running around with the Mexican flag.