#Formula1 #MexicoCity Grand Prix 2021 Preview. #F1 #MexicanGP
Formula 1 Gran Premio De Mexico 2019 Race Start, Autodromo Hermanos Rodriguez, Mexico City, Mexico. 2021 Mexican GP Preview, Mexico City GP Preview.
2021 Mexican GP Preview – After Max Verstappen fended off a charging Mercedes of Lewis Hamilton to win the United States Grand Prix and extend his Driver’s Championship lead over the Briton to 12 points, round 18 of the 2021 FIA Formula One World Championship returns to the famous Autodromo Hermanos Rodriguez in Mexico City, Mexico this weekend for the Formula 1 Gran Premio De La Ciudad De Mexico 2021 following a year-absence from the F1 schedule due to the coronavirus pandemic. This will be the 22nd time that Mexico will be hosting a Grand Prix and the nineteenth as part of the FIA Formula One World Championship.
2021 Mexican GP Preview – A Look At The Autodromo Hermanos Rodriguez
The Autodromo Hermanos Rodriguez is a permanent racing circuit located in Mexico City, Mexico named after famous racing drivers and brothers Ricardo and Pedro Rodriguez. The circuit was built in 1962 within the public park of Magdalena Mixhuca Sports City in southeast Mexico City and hosted its first Formula One Grand Prix the same year as a non-championship round. The following year the Mexican Grand Prix became a full World Championship event. The circuit remained part of the calendar through until 1970 when spectator overcrowding caused unsafe conditions and was dropped from the calendar for 15 years. When the track re-opened and Formula 1 returned from 1986-1992, it boasted a new pit building complex, as well as improved safety all around. Eventually as race speeds increased, the number of serious accidents grew and demands for further safety improvements were made. The organisers were faced with financial difficulties and could not meet the demands needed to keep it on the calendar and was again dropped. In August 2011 with the rise of Mexican drivers Sergio Perez and Esteban Gutierrez, its revived plans to bring Grand Prix racing back to Mexico with tycoon Carlos Slim proposing a revived Mexican Grand Prix.
In May 2012, it was announced that the circuit again will host a Grand Prix from 2013 in a five-year deal to replace Valencia, but this did not happen. It was then listed as the 19th round of the 2014 championship on the provisional calendar but was not finalised on the schedule. In July 2014, it was then announced by Bernie Ecclestone that the Mexican Grand Prix will return starting in 2015 on a 5- year deal.
The Grand Prix circuit underwent major renovations from circuit designer Hermann Tilke for the return of Formula 1 in 2015. The front straight was slightly extended and modified to incorporate a new media centre and paddock. The iconic Esses between turns 7 and 13 were significantly changed with the prolific, high radius turns largely diminished and some replaced with fixed angle turns. The baseball field portion of the track was also altered to accommodate a low-speed left-right combination that bypassed the first half of the famous Peraltada, allowing the cars to re-enter the Peraltada halfway through the corner.
The circuit has the highest altitude of any Formula One event on the calendar all year and this affects aerodynamics as well as top speed. On the 1.3 kilometre main straight, the 1.6L turbocharged V6 era cars will exceed 330kph.
The current Grand Prix circuit is 4.304km (2.674mi) in length with 17 corners and runs in a clockwise direction.
Race distance is 305.354km (190.846mi) in length with 71 laps in total.
Valtteri Bottas holds the fastest lap record at the Mexican Grand Prix with a 1:18.741 set at the 2018 event with his Mercedes AMG Petronas Motorsport F1 W09 EQ Power+.
Jim Clark holds the record of most Mexican Grand Prix victories with three.
Team Lotus are the most successful constructor at the Mexican Grand Prix with four victories.
2021 Mexican GP Preview – Onboard Lap Of The Autodromo Hermanos Rodriguez
Here is the onboard pole lap of the Autodromo Hermanos Rodriguez set at the 2019 Mexican Grand Prix by Charles Leclerc in his Scuderia Ferrari SF90, with the Monegasque-youngster posting a solid 1:15.024. You can watch the video right here at the link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wxem7G3Asfs
2021 Mexican GP Preview – The Last Five Mexican Grand Prix Winners
2020: Not held. 2019: Lewis Hamilton, Mercedes AMG F1. 2018: Max Verstappen, Red Bull Racing. 2017: Max Verstappen, Red Bull Racing. 2016: Lewis Hamilton, Mercedes AMG F1. 2015: Nico Rosberg, Mercedes AMG F1.
2021 Mexican GP Preview – Tyres
Pirelli will be bringing with them to Mexico, the white side-walled C2 Hards, the yellow-branded C3 Mediums and the red-marked C4 Softs along with the green-marked Intermediate and blue-branded Full Wet tyre compounds in case of rain.
Drivers will have eight sets of the softs, three sets of the mediums and two sets of the hards.
2021 Mexican GP Preview – DRS Zones
At the Autodromo Hermanos Rodriguez there will be two DRS Zones, with the detection point between turns 14 and 15 with the first activation point on the main straight with the second activation zone between turns 3 and 4 on the second straight.
2021 Mexican GP Preview – Pitlane Speed Limits
Pitlane speed limits will be 80km/h during practice, qualifying and the race.
ICYMI: Verstappen fends-off Hamilton to claim US GP victory
Red Bull’s Max Verstappen resisted pressure from a charging Mercedes of Lewis Hamilton to clinch victory at the US GP and extended his Driver’s Championship lead.
Red Bull had to use the undercut strategy to get Verstappen back in the lead, which meant Mercedes later left Hamilton out longer to set up an attempt to snatch the win in the dying stages.
When the 56 lap US GP began, pole-sitter Verstappen and Hamilton launched closely alongside each other, but the latter got better acceleration and the duo were almost immediately side-by-side as they ran down to the uphill turn one left-hander.
Verstappen squeezed Hamilton over the pit-lane exit line to the inside edge of the circuit, but the Mercedes driver had the line and was able to grab the lead at the first corner apex.
The Dutchman held on around the outside line, but was forced wide off the circuit by Hamilton, who pulled clear into the lead as Red Bull’s Sergio Perez charged alongside team-mate Verstappen, who had rejoined from off the track.
Perez conceded second place to his team-mate into the left-hand turn three that begins the Esses in sector one as the field charged after the front-runners – only Aston Martin’s Lance Stroll and Alpine’s Esteban Ocon well behind at the back after F1’s two Canadians tangled at turn one with the former spun around by the Williams.
The top three shot clear of Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc who was in fourth place – the trio were running in the high 1:41’s bracket whilst the rest were a second or more slower in the early stages of the Grand Prix.
Hamilton and Verstappen also pulled clear of Perez, with the leader holding a gap of just under a second throughout the opening ten tours – during which Verstappen insisted to his Red Bull team that he had pace and that his championship rival was “sliding a lot”.
Hamilton confirmed to Mercedes that Verstappen was indeed quicker, but, as the duo moved further clear of Perez when the Mexican fell back into the 1:42’s, he continued to hold the advantage.
On the tenth lap, Verstappen told Red Bull he was sliding around a lot more and not going as quick as he was before and at the end of the tour, he was called in to swap the C3 yellow-branded medium compounds, which all the leaders had started on for the more durable C2 white side-walled hards.
Verstappen made short work of former team-mate and McLaren driver Daniel Ricciardo, running behind Leclerc, on his out-lap, with Mercedes opting to leave Hamilton out and not covering his rival.
With Verstappen posting a series of fastest laps, the Dutchman urged his Red Bull squad to use Perez’s strategy aggressively with another undercut in an attempt to stop Mercedes leaving him over for another initial stint.
When Red Bull did that by pitting Perez for another set of the mediums at the end of the 12th tour, Hamilton was then brought in at the end of the next tour, with Verstappen taking back the lead easily when the Mercedes emerged.
Verstappen found himself with a six second gap that he kept over the next stage of the Grand Prix – with the leaders lapping in the high 1:40’s – with Perez ten seconds behind in third place.
Past the 20th lap mark, Hamilton began to turn the wick up as he picked up his pace to hit the low 1:40’s, which rapidly ate into Verstappen’s lead.
The Red Bull driver’s advantage was soon under three seconds as Hamilton’s three-lap tyre life off set benefit began to pay off, with Verstappen slipping back into the 1:41’s as he made his way through the tailenders.
But Verstappen responded, gaining back a heap of time just before the deployment of the virtual safety car to remove a piece of debris at the turn 16 entry – the multi-corner sequence leading to the circuit’s final turns.
Red Bull once again went aggressive with Verstappen’s strategy, calling him in for another set of hards at the end of the 29th tour, with Mercedes immediately telling Hamilton his response to the Milton-Keynes based-outfit was that he would be running longer – Perez now no longer a threat from behind.
Hamilton remained out for an extra eight tours after Verstappen stopped a final time, with Mercedes setting up a big tyre advantage compared to the Dutchman for the end of the Grand Prix.
When Hamilton emerged from the pits on lap 38, he had an 8.7 second gap to hunt down over 18 tours and during the early stint of the charge, the seven-time world champion made small gains on his title-rival, but then upped his pace to hit the 1:38’s bracket as Verstappen struggled to pass traffic, with his lead coming down to 4.8 seconds at the end of the 42nd tour.
Once the pairing both cleared the traffic, with Hamilton evidently held up less, Verstappen’s gap continued to drop, now at a steadier rate, with his team telling him to make sure he had enough tyre life left to resist Hamilton’s charge coming into DRS range at the end of the Grand Prix.
At the 50th tour, Verstappen’s lead was under two seconds for the first time, but Hamilton’s gains on the Red Bull driver were getting smaller again as he arrived at the RB16B’s turbulent air.
The gap stabilised before Hamilton closed in with three laps remaining – Verstappen’s advantage barely a second and with Mick Schumacher’s Haas VF-21 suddenly an obstacle as he came to overlap the German for a second time.
But although Hamilton was just 0.8 seconds behind at the beginning of the final lap, Verstappen had DRS assistance down the main-straight as he had been in the detection zone following the Haas at the end of the second-to-last tour.
That helped the Dutchman to pull clear just enough from Hamilton’s threat to not let the Briton have DRS activation or make a move in the fight, with Verstappen claiming the US GP victory by 1.333 seconds and extended his championship lead to 12 points.
Perez finished 42.223 seconds behind his Red Bull team-mate in third, with Leclerc only 10 seconds behind the Mexican in fourth.
Fifth place belonged to McLaren’s Ricciardo after he clashed with Ferrari’s Carlos Sainz in the late stages of the race – the duo and Lando Norris also engaged in a thrilling battle on the opening tour – whilst Sainz fell behind Bottas late on.
Norris came home eighth behind his former McLaren team-mate, with AlphaTauri’s Yuki Tsunoda who held off Bottas for several laps at the halfway point of the Grand Prix with a series of solid defensive moves, finishing ninth.
Aston Martin’s Sebastian Vettel rose from the back of the field after taking on a new power-train to claim the final points place after his former Ferrari team-mate Kimi Raikkonen spun his Alfa Romeo out of tenth place with a dramatic spin at the bumpy and long turn six right with three tours remaining.
Alfa Romeo Racing’s Antonio Giovinazzi finished 11th and ahead of the aforementioned Stroll and team-mate Raikkonen who were 12th and 13th respectively.
Williams Racing’s George Russell and Nicholas Latifi followed next in 14th and 15th whilst the Haas F1 Team pairing of Mick Schumacher and Nikita Mazepin brought up the rear and two laps down on the leaders.
The only-non finishers of the racers were the Alpine F1 Team duo, with Alpine’s Ocon retiring in the pits with an unspecified issue with the rear of his A521 racer, and later Fernando Alonso after his rear wing “broke up.”
AlphaTauri’s Pierre Gasly was the first retirement when his Honda-powered AT02 racer’s suspension was damaged on lap 12.
2021 Mexican GP Preview – The Situation
Max Verstappen returns to Mexico sitting on top of the World Driver’s Championship with 287.5 points and a 12-point advantage over Lewis Hamilton who is second on 275.5 points whilst Valtteri Bottas is third and a further 102.5 behind the Dutchman on 185 points.
Mercedes AMG Petronas Formula One Team returns to the Autodromo Hermanos Rodriguez on top of the Constructors Championship standings with 460.5 points with a 23-point gap over nearest rivals Red Bull Racing who are second on 437.5 points while McLaren Racing are a further 206.5 behind the Silver Arrows in third on 254 points.
Click here for the 2021 Formula 1 World Driver’s (Top 10) and Constructors Championship Standings
The Formula 1 Gran Premio De La Ciudad De Mexico 2021 weekend begins Friday October 5 with Free Practice 1 and 2, followed by Free Practice 3 and Qualifying Saturday October 6 and the 71 lap Race Sunday October 7.
