Max Verstappen was expected to be fast at the Autódromo Hermanos Rodríguez, but what Red Bull Racing and the Dutchman delivered on Sunday went beyond even the home crowd’s hopes: a victory from fifth on the grid, two razor-sharp starts, and a straight-line pace that left former Formula 1 driver Christijan Albers openly amazed, GPFans reported. Albers, analyzing the race in De Telegraaf’s F1 podcast alongside reporter Erik van Haren, singled out both the starts and the RB22’s top speed on the long main straight.
Verstappen crossed the line first in Mexico City after starting fifth, having taken a one-place grid penalty for a qualifying incident with Liam Lawson. He and Nico Hülkenberg were the only top-ten starters on medium tires, a choice that paid off immediately when the lights went out.
Max Verstappen no oculta su frustración por los fallos aleatorios del motor Red Bull y ya lo toma con humor: bromeó con “hablar directamente” con la unidad de potencia para pedirle explicaciones. La escena ocurre en el Autódromo Hermanos Rodríguez, en Ciudad de México, el… pic.twitter.com/6kR26yqYBB
Two starts that silenced the doubters
Recent start struggles had followed Verstappen, but in Mexico they vanished. With the long run to Turn 1, a poor getaway is punished visibly at this circuit, and Albers said that is exactly why the start mattered so much: “If there’s anywhere a bad start really shows, it’s here.”
Verstappen shot from fifth to fourth at the green light and backed it up with a second strong launch after the restart. From the cockpit, Albers said, you could see how hard the Dutchman was working: “I saw him rowing, you know. He was just working.” Then came the verdict: “Incredible, that start. Everything was simply perfect.”
What Red Bull changed to fix the starts, Albers said he could not say with certainty. He no longer sits close to that department and gets less inside information through his old contacts than he used to.
The straight-line speed nobody could ignore
“But have you seen how fast that Red Bull ran on the straight?” he asked. He also pointed to the visible turbulence trailing behind the RB22 on the main straight, a sign of just how much air the car was moving at speed.
While Verstappen capitalized on his starts and top speed, Scuderia Ferrari tangled with itself in the opening phase. Polesitter Lewis Hamilton and teammate Charles Leclerc went side by side off the track in the first lap battle. Leclerc took the lead but was later hit with a five-second time penalty for leaving the track and gaining a lasting advantage. Verstappen took the lead during the pit-stop phase and drove to the win.
Red Bull’s strategic about-face after Austin
Motorsport.com detailed the strategic choice behind the victory. After Red Bull stuck too long to softer compounds in Austin and, according to the drivers, was not open enough to react to the race, the team did the opposite in Mexico: it chose track position over the tire advantage. “I think Charles simply drove away. I couldn’t really stay close to him,” Verstappen admitted after the race. “I didn’t have the speed to follow him, but at the same time I stayed within that window of about five seconds.”
The trade-off left Verstappen on a very long stint on soft tires, and race engineer Gianpiero Lambiase told him over the radio that Red Bull needed one of Verstappen’s “magical Mexico stints.” When a safety car came out just as Verstappen exited the final corner and could not pit, he feared it was the end of his race — until a red flag reset everything and allowed a tire change, though it also meant a standing restart, not Red Bull’s strongest point this year.
Ferrari’s internal clash and Albers’ call for hard team rules
The rule when there is a pace difference between teammates is simple, Albers said: “The one coming with the fresh set of tires and the other doesn’t have the speed and the pace: immediately to the side.” And Red Bull enforces it, he added: “If Hadjar gets in Verstappen’s way, it happens within two, three corners.”
🏆🇲🇽 ¡EL REY DE MÉXICO LO HIZO OTRA VEZ! Max Verstappen conquistó su sexta victoria en el Gran Premio de México y amplió su récord como el máximo ganador en el Autódromo Hermanos Rodríguez. 🏎️ 🍾 Así se vivió la celebración en el podio, donde el neerlandés volvió a demostrar que… pic.twitter.com/mCwaCalQ8F
Radio fixed, shifts still a work in progress
Off the track, Red Bull also addressed a technical headache that had surfaced in Austin, where Verstappen railed on the radio about poor shift moments and a flaky connection to the pit wall — a problem Hadjar also suffered. RacingNews365 reported that Verstappen said the radio was “a lot better in Mexico,” adding that the team had tried a few things and only a couple of small settings still needed fine-tuning. He joked that the team could understand him perfectly even if the rest of the world could not: “Maybe the rest couldn’t understand me, but honestly that’s fantastic. We should try to keep it that way.”
Verstappen also put his repeated complaints about shifting into perspective. “If you hear me complaining about shifts or anything else, it’s because I’m never satisfied,” he said. “I always think certain things can be better. If you see that as complaining: for me it’s a way to make sure the team keeps looking at the details to find more lap time, because I know there’s still lap time in it.”
Where the championship stands after Mexico City
The win moved Verstappen to 261 points and second place in the world championship, behind newly crowned champion Kimi Antonelli, who finished third in Mexico on 380 points. Hamilton took second place, with Leclerc fourth.
F1maximaal.nl captured Verstappen’s frustration with the stewards during the race, when he pressed about the Leclerc incident at Turn 12 and later railed against the timing of the safety car, only to be told the radio message could not be repeated. Despite the noise, Lambiase was quick to congratulate him after the flag: “You kept your head cool, Max! You did fantastic work.”
🏎️ Así quedó la tabla de posiciones en la F1 tras el Gran Premio de México 🏆 El piloto de Mercedes alcanzó los puntos necesarios en el Autódromo Hermanos Rodríguez para coronarse en la Fórmula 1, mientras Max Verstappen se llevó la victoria de la carrerahttps://t.co/rISxIu39XU
What remains unanswered heading to São Paulo
Albers could not say exactly what Red Bull changed to cure the start problems, and Ferrari’s leadership has not yet explained how it will prevent another Hamilton-Leclerc clash. What is known: Vasseur is set to address the matter internally before the next race weekend in São Paulo, where Verstappen will look to keep his momentum going in the title fight.
