Verstappen dominates the Mexican Grand Prix and holds the record

“I’m happy that I managed to win in such an atmosphere. We’ve had an incredible year so far. I’m enjoying it and we’ll try to prove even more,” said Verstappen after the finish in front of the television cameras.

The native of Hasselt defended last year’s victory in Mexico and claimed the 34th triumph of his career. The twenty-five-year-old driver also set a new points maximum. He has 416 points on his account two races before the end of the season, three more than the current record holder Hamilton in the 2019 season.

“Congratulations to Max. It’s great to be so high and separate the Red Bulls from each other,” said Hamilton. “I’m not sure if we chose the right tires in the race. It was fine in the first section, but the hard tire in the second section was the opposite,” added the seven-time world champion.

Qualifying winner Verstappen kept the lead after the start. Hamilton was second and Pérez was third. Britain’s George Russell dropped two places to fourth. The elite quartet soon leapfrogged the rest of the field.

Leader Verstappen failed to get away from Hamilton. The Brit held a loss of over two seconds after twenty laps. On the 24th lap, Pérez went for new tires, but due to a mechanical error, he was delayed for five seconds. A lap later, Verstappen also pitted and returned in third ahead of Ferrari’s Carlos Sainz.

Six laps later, Hamilton also changed tires and had the hard compound put on. His teammate Russell also voted similarly. The Mercedes drivers were hoping that their rivals from Red Bull would have to build again due to the use of softer tyres, but this did not happen. On the softer compound, Verstappen built up a lead of more than ten seconds on the 47th lap and increased the blockbuster until the finish line.

“It helped that I kept the lead after the first corner. We chose a different strategy to the rivals, but again we got an incredible result. Our pace was great. We had to be careful with the tires and did a very long stretch on the medium compound. In the end we did it ,” Verstappen boasted.

The tension was provided by the pilots in the middle of the field. On lap 51, McLaren’s Daniel Ricciardo crashed into Alpha Tauri’s Júki Cunoda. The Japanese was the first pilot to withdraw from the race. Ricciardo received a ten-second penalty, but managed to gain the necessary lead over Esteban Ocon and remained in seventh place.

With six laps to go, Alpine’s Fernando Alonso retired with engine problems. The two-time world champion did not finish the fifth race of the season. The bonus point for the fastest lap went to fourth place Russell, who had the softest tire compound on the last lap. He did not threaten the third Pérez.

“I tried to push as hard as I could. Unfortunately we had a bad pit stop after which we couldn’t overtake Lewis (Hamilton). Once I got behind him it was hard to hold onto him so I had to stay third. I’m happy to be on stage, but in front of this audience I wanted more,” said Pérez.

The penultimate race of the season in Brazil will be held on November 13.