@Max33Verstappen extends title-lead with dominant #MexicanGP victory. #F1 #MexicoCityGP

Red Bull’s Max Verstappen cruised to a dominant victory at the Mexican GP extending his Driver’s Championship lead over Lewis Hamilton who came home second after the Dutchman placed a solid first corner move over the Mercedes, and it all went wrong for pole-sitter Valtteri Bottas.

Sergio Perez brought his Red Bull third after Hamilton fended off the Mexican’s two stints with a tyre-life advantage over the Silver Arrows.

When the 71-lap Mexican GP began, Hamilton got a great launch off the line to get alongside Bottas on the inside rundown to the right-hand first corner, whilst Verstappen closed in with the slipstream and swept around the outside of both Mercedes to take the lead.

As Verstappen lead Hamilton into the second corner, drama unfolded behind them as Bottas was tapped into a spin by McLaren’s Daniel Ricciardo, who suffered a heavy lock-up into turn one.

As the Mercedes spun around, Perez cut across the inside to Bottas’s left, with the track limits infringement rule that Hamilton was in breach of in FP1 was suspended for the opening tour following a late order from F1 Race Director Michael Masi, with the rest of the field getting their way around.

In the opening lap chaos, Alpine F1 Team’s Esteban Ocon was sandwiched between AlphaTauri’s Yuki Tsunoda and Haas F1 Team’s Mick Schumacher – the damage put Tsunoda out of the race at turn two and left the Haas spotted just past the third corner exit leading onto the second straight.

The safety car was deployed so the wreckage could be removed, with Bottas stopping at the back of the pack to switch the C3 yellow-marked medium compounds for a set of hards.

Just before the restart, Verstappen dropped Hamilton as he sped through the final sequence of stadium section and already had a 0.9 second gap as the race fully resumed on the fifth lap.

From there, the Red Bull driver pulled clear of his championship rival, lapping in the mid 1:21’s as Hamilton began his initial stint lapping in the low 1:22’s, and continuing to pick up his pace – momentarily breaking into the high 1:20’s – with a string of fastest laps in the 10 tours that followed the safety car being brought in.

By the 15^th lap, Verstappen was 5.4 seconds clear, which he extended to almost ten seconds – with no pressure from behind – by the time the Dutchman pitted on the 33^rd tour.

As Verstappen moved off into the distance, Hamilton was soon under pressure to keep a gap from Perez, who remained two seconds behind the Briton throughout the initial stint, despite being urged by his race engineer to close up to the Mercedes.

Hamilton was the first of the leader to pit for harder tyres, four tours before Verstappen – just as Perez cut the gap to 1.5 seconds behind.

Whilst Red Bull left Verstappen out a little longer, it left Perez out 11 tours longer than Hamilton’s stop – setting up a better tyre-life off-set advantage for the second stage of the Grand Prix.

At the beginning of the 42^nd tour, Perez’s out lap, Verstappen lead Hamilton by 9.8 seconds, with Perez facing a 9.5 second gap to chase the Mercedes down over the rest of proceedings.

Verstappen, completely trouble-free in the lead, stably pulled clear from Hamilton over the second stint to take a solid Mexican GP victory by 16.555 seconds.

The main focus remained on Perez’s attempts to catch Hamilton, which the home favourite did so solidly during the first phase after stopping – the gap between them down to 5.7 seconds at the end of the 50^th tour as the Red Bull driver regularly lapped in the 1:19’s to Hamilton’s low 1:20’s.

Mercedes believed the second Red Bull would be close enough to make an overtake on the last tour, but Perez’s pace was so solid he closed within DRS range on the 61^st lap.

At this phase, Hamilton was running behind the lapped McLaren of Lando Norris, who had enough pace to remain out of blue flag range for a few tours, which helped Perez’s pursuit.

But when the McLaren moved aside on the 62^nd lap, Perez fell out of DRS range behind Hamilton, who was displaying solid straight-line speed – as Mercedes had all weekend at the Autodromo Hermanos Rodriguez.

This halted Perez’s charge and the Mexican fell back again as the duo made their way through backmarkers – including Alpine F1 Team’s Fernando Alonso and the twice-lapped Williams of George Russell (16^th at the end of the Grand Prix).

Perez closed in again on Hamilton again to run within a second of the Briton on the final tour, but his look up the inside of the fourth corner was never really close enough to threaten Hamilton’s position and the Mexican came home in third place and 1.1 seconds behind.

Verstappen’s gap had been a high as 20 seconds, but when Mercedes called Bottas in for a third time to snatch the fastest lap bonus point from the Dutchman, the pairing were suddenly close on track and momentarily held each other up.

Bottas two laps down having chased Ricciardo on the outside of the top ten in the initial phase of the Grand Prix, losing further ground with a second slower stop to put back on the medium rubber at the halfway point.

He took one lap back by-passing Verstappen, who then lapped Bottas again – with Mercedes then deciding to stop Bottas again for a fourth time to grab the fastest lap on the final lap, which Bottas, in 15^th place, clinched with a 1:17.774 – although no point would be awarded due to the Finn finishing outside the top ten.

Behind the leaders, AlphaTauri’s Pierre Gasly took a solid fourth place – running a quiet race ahead of the two Ferrari’s.

Charles Leclerc was lead driver for the Scuderia taking fifth – after being allowed back past team-mate Carlos Sainz later on, as the duo had already swapped to allow the Spaniard the opportunity to close in on Gasly after he completed a lengthy initial stint.

But when that did not work out, Leclerc who gained ground in the opening corner sequence – where both Ferrari’s were off the track at one point – was given back the place ahead of the finish as the last driver to finish on the lead lap.

Aston Martin’s Sebastian Vettel came seventh in-front of Alfa Romeo Racing’s Kimi Raikkonen, with Alonso ninth and Norris rounding out the top ten.

The other Alfa C41 entry of Antonio Giovinazzi finished in 11^th and ahead of McLaren’s Ricciardo who was 12^th, Alpine’s Ocon who took 13^th and the second Aston Martin of Lance Stroll in 14^th place.

The aforementioned Bottas came a low 15^th in-front of Williams Racing pairing George Russell and Nicholas Latifi who were 16^th and 17^th respectively as Haas F1 Team’s Nikita Mazepin brought up the rear and 3 laps down from the lead.

2021 Mexico City GP – The Top Three

2021 Mexico City GP Winner – Max Verstappen, #33, Red Bull Racing-Honda, RB16:

“The fans here, they’ve been incredible. [The start] was all about trying to break as late as you can, and it made my race as I could just focus on myself. Still a long way to go, but of course it’s looking good.”

2^nd Place – Lewis Hamilton, #44, Mercedes AMG Petronas Formula One Team, F1 W12 EQ Performance:

“Congratulations to Max, their car was fastest this weekend and there wasn’t a lot I could do about it. I gave it everything, a great fight with Sergio at the end. It just shows how fast their car was, he was applying that pressure and just kept going.”

3^rd Place – Sergio Perez, #11, Red Bull Racing-Honda, RB16B:

“Today I wanted to get the 1-2 for the team, it was really close. The support here… It’s unbelievable. Obviously, I wanted more, I wanted a 1-2 for the team. But I gave it all my heart.”

Formula 1 Gran Premio De La Ciudad De Mexico 2021 Race Results Classification (71 Laps)

https://www.formula1.com/en/results.html/2021/races/1103/mexico/race-result.html

Click here for the Formula 1 World Driver’s (Top 10) and Constructors Championship Standings

Round 19 of the 2021 FIA Formula One World Championship returns to the historic Autodromo Jose Carlos Pace in Sao Paulo, Brazil for the Formula 1 Heineken Gran Premio De Sao Paulo 2021 from Friday November 12-Sunday November 14 in the sport’s second race of the final triple header of the season.