Mighty Verstappen wins Mexico GP second time in a row: 'Amazing'
Published on 28 October 2018 by Mike Motilall
Max Verstappen has managed to very dominantly bring home his fifth career win at the Mexican Grand Prix. The Dutchman kept Lewis Hamilton at bay who had a very decent start. After his own decent start Verstappen took the lead over. During the race he never let that slip out of his hand and with a lead of seventeen seconds on number two, Sebastian Vettel, the Aston Martin Red Bull Racing-driver took the checkered flag. Kimi Raikkonen completed the podium. Lewis Hamilton finished fourth fastest, that was more than enough for him to secure his fifth world title.
“Amazing”, says a happy Verstappen after the race. “The start was the key. To be honest I didn’t sleep well last night. I was really determined to win today. Luckily we did that. An amazing job by the team as well. We had the right tyres available and the car was working brilliantly.”
Max drove almost the entire race comfortably at the front. How did the race look like from Verstappen’s perspective? “We were able to watch our tyres well the whole race”, says the Dutchman. “I never felt that I was really put under pressure. I was able to drive my own race and followed what the rest did. When they came in for a pit stop, we did that as well. Luckily we still had an extra set of the super-softs, which made things even better. I am very happy with this win.”
For the unfortunate Daniel Ricciardo, his world of hurt is not over as it would appear. Max’ team mate dropped out in the closing stages of the race due to a technical problem. This gave Verstappen towards the end some worrying: “It is a shame to lose Daniel and I think we could have had a one-two or at least two cars on the podium. From that moment on we wanted to make sure that mine couldn’t retire. Even if that meant to turn down the power on the engine, just to be on the safe side. That is what we ultimately did.”
When the lights go out on Autódromo Hermanos Rodríguez, it’s Lewis Hamilton who has a brilliant start. Max Verstappen also has a good getaway and together with the Briton they overtake Daniel Ricciardo. Max and Hamilton take the first corner side by side, but Verstappen keeps the inside line and takes over the lead in the race. Ricciardo is not able to make the best of his pole position and after the first lap he is in third. Behind the Ozzie, it’s Sebastian Vettel, Valtteri Bottas, Carlos Sainz, Kimi Raikkonen and Nico Hulkenberg who are the top eight at that moment.
Esteban Ocon has had to deal with one of the Renaults during the first lap and pits almost immediately for a new front wing and a fresh set of tyres. The one who is really affected by all this is Fernando Alonso. The Spaniard gets some debris under his McLaren and is forced to park his car trackside on lap five. The Virtual Safety Car is deployed, neutralizing the entire field temporarily. The track is cleared quite quickly again and it’s not long before all the drivers are back on race pace.
As the laps start mounting, Max is building his lead on Lewis Hamilton slowly but surely. After ten laps, the gap between the two of them is over four second.
On lap twelve, both Mercedes come in and switch their ultra-softs for the red-striped tyre. Not much later, Daniel Ricciardo and Max Verstappen also come in for their stop. The Dutchman rejoins just behind of Kimi Raikkonen, but quickly overtakes him on lap fifteen. Causing the delay to be at a bare minimum. Hamilton (P2) and Ricciardo (P3) follow suit.
On lap eighteen, when both Ferrari’s hit the pits, Max retakes the lead of the race again. His lead on Hamilton is at that moment eight second. The Briton need not to worry about his championship, as a second place finish would be more than enough to put a fifth title behind his name.
The Virtual Safety Car is triggered once more on lap thirty-one. Carlos Sainz has parked his car alongside the track in the stadium. After the re-start on lap 33, Max is cruising at the front with a comfortable lead on Hamilton by some thirteen seconds. One lap later, Vettel overtakes Ricciardo for P3. That’s not the end of it, as the German also makes little work of Lewis Hamilton on lap thirty-nine for the second spot.
Shortly afterwards, drop out number three reports at the pits: Sergio Perez returns his Force India back to his team and is forced to prematurely abort his fight for a nice result in front of his home crowd.
Due to the high tyre degradation, the drivers are forced to do an additional stop. Verstappen waits patiently what the rest does and then, after the competition finished their stop, he pits. He rejoins as the front runner once again.
With twenty laps remaining, Verstappen, Ricciardo, Vettel, Raikkonen, Hamilton and Bottas form the top six. It is clear that Ricciardo’s streak of bad luck is still not over when, on lap sixty-two, smoke start bellowing out from his RB14. The car of the normally well humoured Ozzie breaks down at the end of the straight. This puts another DNF behind the name of Ricciardo. The chance of a podium finish or maybe even a one-two is out of the window.
After yet another brief VSC-deployment, Verstappen takes a lead of fourteen second into the final stages of the race. Max asks his team to turn down the power unit of his RB14, if necessary, to prevent him from running into the same problem as Ricciardo. Those problems luckily never materialize and Verstappen takes home his fifth Formula 1-career win when the flag drops. Sebastian Vettel and Kimi Raikkonen complete the podium. Lewis Hamilton is fourth fastest but has brought home enough points to crown himself world champion. It’s the fifth world championship title for the Briton who, with this win, has prematurely concluded an exciting fight for the title so far.
| pos | driver | team | laps | time | points | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Max Verstappen | VER | Red Bull Racing TAG Heuer | 71 | 1:38:28.851 | 25 |
| 2 | Sebastian Vettel | VET | Ferrari | 71 | +17.316s | 18 |
| 3 | Kimi Räikkönen | RAI | Ferrari | 71 | +49.914s | 15 |
| 4 | Lewis Hamilton | HAM | Mercedes | 71 | +78.738s | 12 |
| 5 | Valteri Bottas | BOT | Mercedes | 70 | +1 lap | 10 |
| 6 | Nico Hulkenberg | HUL | Renault | 69 | +2 laps | 8 |
| 7 | Charles Leclerc | LEC | Sauber Ferrari | 69 | +2 laps | 6 |
| 8 | Stoffel Vandoorne | VAN | McLaren Renault | 69 | +2 laps | 4 |
| 9 | Marcus Ericsson | ERI | Sauber Ferrari | 69 | +2 laps | 2 |
| 10 | Pierre Gasly | GAS | Scuderia Toro Rosso Honda | 69 | +2 laps | 1 |
| 11 | Esteban Ocon | OCO | Force India Mercedes | 69 | +2 laps | 0 |
| 12 | Lance Stroll | STR | Williams Mercedes | 69 | +2 laps | 0 |
| 13 | Sergey Sirotkin | SIR | Williams Mercedes | 69 | +2 laps | 0 |
| 14 | Brendon Hartley | HAR | Scuderia Toro Rosso Honda | 69 | +2 laps | 0 |
| 15 | Kevin Magnussen | MAG | Haas Ferrari | 69 | +2 laps | 0 |
| 16 | Romain Grosjean | GRO | Haas Ferrari | 68 | +3 laps | 0 |
| 0 | Daniel Ricciardo | RIC | Red Bull Racing TAG Heuer | 61 | DNF | 0 |
| 0 | Sergio Perez | PER | Force India Mercedes | 38 | DNF | 0 |
| 0 | Carlos Sainz | SAI | Renault | 28 | DNF | 0 |
| 0 | Fernando Alonso | ALO | McLaren Renault | 3 | DNF | 0 |
