The teams and drivers were back in Mexico at the Autodromo Hermanos Rodriguez after missing the event last year. It was a front-row lockout of Mercedes in the FORMULA 1 GRAN PREMIO DE LA CIUDAD DE MÉXICO 2021, but opening lap chaos took Bottas out of contention.
The drivers at the front of the grid were forced to sit stationary at the end of the formation lap while they waited an unusually long time for the rest of the field to line up on the grid.
Both Mercedes cars on the front row got away well and were side-by-side on the long run down to the first corner. Max Verstappen was able to get a slipstream from third on the grid, putting him alongside polesitter Valtteri Bottas. Into the first corner, Verstappen was more confident on his brakes, zipping around the outside of the Mercedes and into the lead of the race.
The second row of cars were also three-wide into the first corner. Daniel Ricciardo was on the inside of the first corner, but locked up on the dirty side of the track. He clipped the rear of Bottas, spinning the Mercedes around in front of the rest of the field. The stewards put the incident down as a racing incident.
There was chaos behind as the rest of the field slammed on the brakes to dodge a backwards Bottas in a cloud of smoke. Esteban Ocon was sandwiched between Yuki Tsunoda and Mick Schumacher. He collided with both cars, giving the AlphaTauri and Haas terminal damage.
The safety car was deployed to clear away the aftermath of the opening lap carnage. Both Bottas and Ricciardo were able to continue the race, although both needed to pit for new tyres and Ricciardo needed a new front wing.
The race resumed on lap 5. Verstappen was able to get the best of Lewis Hamilton on the restart, pulling away at the end of the stadium section. He started with a strong lead and the gap in front only got bigger as the laps ticked onward.
Hamilton was the first of the leaders to pit for new tyres in what was a one-stop strategy on lap 30. His rejoined the race behind Charles Leclerc, but that didn’t hold him up too much, since the Ferrari driver pitted the following lap. This gave Hamilton the advantage of DRS from the pitting Ferrari, closing the gap to Sergio Perez.
With a lap in clean air, Hamilton managed to get into Perez’s pit window, meaning that Perez would rejoin the race behind Hamilton if they pitted. Red Bull opted to leave out Perez and try something different for the Mexican at his home race.
Max Verstappen pitted on lap 33 for new tyres and rejoined the race comfortably ahead of Hamilton. This gave Perez the lead of the race, making him the first Mexican Formula One driver to lead a lap of their home race. He didn’t pit until lap 41. Some expected the team to give him a set of soft tyres to make to the end of the race, but the team decided to give him some hard tyres, hoping that he could challenge Hamilton at the end of the race with fresher tyres.
With 10 laps remaining in the race, Perez found himself within DRS range of Hamilton, making a P2 finish a possibility for the Red Bull driver. Lando Norris was slightly hurting Hamilton’s pace, as the Brit came up to lap him. Eventually, Norris was shown the blue flag and let the two cars get by. There was a loud roar from the crowd cheering on their home hero each time the cars passed through the stadium section.
But with the backmarkers out of the way, Hamilton was able to drop Perez outside of DRS range. This is despite the team telling Hamilton to lift and coast to prevent the brakes from overheating. With 5 laps left in the race, the two battling cars came across some other lapped cars, which hurt Perez’s pace.
Further back, Valtteri Bottas pitted for a set of used soft tyres to try and steal the fastest lap from Verstappen. Bottas had been having a poor race after his early drama. Unfortunately, this meant that he came out behind the race leader. This prevented him from getting a quick lap. With two laps remaining, Mercedes pitted him again for another set of soft tyres. It was a long stop as the team made sure to release him into clean air. It worked and Bottas stole the fastest lap. He didn’t get an extra point because he was outside of the top 10, but he did take the point away from Verstappen.
With a couple of laps remaining, Perez was ready to launch another attack on Hamilton for the second step of the podium. He was told to give it everything and drain his battery, but he was just not close enough to Hamilton to get the position. He had to settle for the bottom step of the podium, becoming the first Mexican to stand on the podium in the Mexican Grand Prix.
The F1 show will be heading South for the second race in the final triple header of the season. Next up is the Sao Paulo Grand Prix in Brazil on the weekend of November 14.
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| Race Results | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | M. Verstappen | ||
| 2 | L. Hamilton | ||
| 3 | S. Perez | ||
| 4 | P. Gasly | ||
| 5 | C. Leclerc | ||
| 6 | C. Sainz | ||
| 7 | S. Vettel | ||
| 8 | K. Raikkonen | ||
| 9 | F. Alonso | ||
| 10 | L. Norris | ||
| 11 | A. Giovinazzi | ||
| 12 | D. Ricciardo | ||
| 13 | E. Ocon | ||
| 14 | L. Stroll | ||
| 15 | V. Bottas | ||
| 16 | G. Russell | ||
| 17 | N. Latifi | ||
| 18 | N. Mazepin | ||
| DNF | M. Schumacher | ||
| DNF | Y. Tsunoda | ||
