Lewis Hamilton was able to secure his fifth World Drivers’ Championship at the FORMULA 1 GRAN PREMIO DE MÉXICO 2018, a race dominated by race winner Max Verstappen and largely impacted by tyre degradation. The race could have been called the Maxican Grand Prix.
As the lights went out, Lewis Hamilton got a blistering start from P3 on the grid, overtaking Daniel Ricciardo and racing side-by-side with Max Verstappen on the massive run down to the first corner. Hamilton braked conservatively into the corner, allowing Verstappen to take the lead position without contention. Verstappen quickly pulled outside of DRS range of Hamilton within a couple of laps.
Fernando Alonso was the first driver to retire from the race, collecting debris from the front wing of the Force India after they made minor contact with a Renault. With this retirement, Alonso gave up his chance to earn the record for the most career laps raced, seeing as his career will be ending at the end of the season. The VSC was deployed to recover the parked McLaren, but none of the lead drivers claimed their cheap pitstop.
Mercedes was the first of the leading teams to pit, double stacking their drivers on lap 12, potentially starting a two-stop strategy. Ricciardo pitted the following lap, attempting to cover off the Mercedes pitstop, but it didn’t pan out. Verstappen pitted after his teammate, allowing Sebastian Vettel to move into the lead of the race, although he hadn’t pitted.
Hamilton and Ricciardo got by Kimi Räikkönen on his old tyres in turn one. This prompted Ferrari to double stack their drivers six laps later than their competition had done, no longer seeing the necessary speed in their tyres.
About 13 laps after fitting the fresh supersoft tyres, Mercedes and Red Bull began to experience lots of graining and degradation on the front-left tyre. Meanwhile, Ferrari appeared to be able to manage their tyres slightly better than their competitors on their new tyres. This allowed him to gain a lot of time on Ricciardo in P3 and have a few looks at overtaking the Red Bull.
Carlos Sainz stopped his car in the stadium section of the circuit, bringing out the virtual safety car. Force India was the only team to take advantage of pitting under the VSC conditions. Vettel was right on the gearbox of Ricciardo under the VSC but was caught out slightly when the race resumed.
With some assistance from the DRS, Vettel was able to dive up the inside of Ricciardo into the first corner. The duo were held up slightly by a battle for P8 between Sergio Pérez and Charles Leclerc, but the blue flag was waved and the two drivers got out of the way. A few laps later, Vettel was able to charge past Hamilton and move into P2.
Ricciardo chased down Hamilton and mounted an overtaking attempt on the outside of the first corner, but Hamilton ran out of grip and locked up through the grass. This triggered pitstops among the top teams. Vettel pitted to cover off Hamilton, who also pitted for a set of used ultrasoft tyres on lap 47. Valtteri Bottas had an identical locking up incident into the first corner, allowing Kimi Räikkönen to overtake him and prompted Mercedes to pit him as well. With Vettel having pitted, Verstappen made his second pitstop of the day for his set of fresh supersofts without losing any positions. Ricciardo and Räikkönen were the only two of the top six drivers who opted not to pit for new tyres.
With just 15 laps remaining in the race, Vettel began to put some pressure on Ricciardo. However, Ricciardo was setting some super quick lap times, despite the age of his tyres. But as the laps dropped to just 10 laps, tragedy struck Ricciardo, as a puff of smoke from his engine signalled the end of his race for the 8th time this season. The VSC was deployed for the incident.
Bottas was the only driver to take the free pitstop, fitting the only set of tyres remaining in his side of the garage, which were a set of hypersoft tyres. This was just to ensure that Bottas would make it to the end of the race, since the next closest car of Nico Hülkenberg was a full lap behind Bottas.
With some concern growing on the Red Bull pit wall, the goal was to get their second car home. They turned down Verstappen’s engine, in an effort to preserve it. Vettel’s tyres began to look very bad as the race came to a close, losing him a lot of time to the leading car and guaranteeing that he would not be able to challenge for the victory.
As Verstappen, Vettel and Räikkönen celebrated up on the podium, the real celebration was in the Mercedes garage, as the team celebrates their fifth consecutive World Drivers’ Championship title.
Although the World Drivers’ Championship title has been mathematically decided, still two races remain in the 2018 Formula One season. The drivers will be heading to the penultimate race in Brazil for the weekend of November 11.
Above results table does not include any post-race penalties
