2024 Mexico Grand Prix Recap
28 October 2024
My weekend was jampacked but I was able to get to watch all the sessions of the Mexico Grand Prix, our 20th race weekend of the 2024 season. It’s sad to see what Aston Martin has done this year after their successes last year, but it’s really impressive to see that this is Fernando Alonso’s 400th Grand Prix start though it didn’t really pan out for him. I was disappointed we saw some racing that wasn’t clean, and it will have impacts on the championships. Let’s go through the weekend.
Qualifying
I watched this on a long tape-delay but it was an exciting session. Q1 saw two shocks and then Q3 was very exciting. You love to see Carlos having an absolutely beautiful lap to take pole. Either way, Formula 1 has to be happy with the number of story lines that were setup due to this hour.
- I love seeing the crowd root for Sergio Perez, but my god. He’s out in Q1. Just a brutal season for the Mexican driver.
- Equally shocking is Oscar Piastri breaking his streak of continuous entries into Q3, with an exit in Q1 too.
- I was hoping that Liam and Yuki would get another opportunity to try to get into Q3, but Yuki crashed to red flag the session and ended their attempt.
- However, it was cool to see both Haas’s, Albon, and Pierre getting into Q3. When we get those shocks, it gives these drivers a wonderful opportunity.
- I was not expecting Max to do much after the horrible FP1 and FP2 sessions. It sounded like he was going to need to take a new power unit, but they put in an old one and then easily got into Q3. His first attempt in Q3 was deleted for track limits, but he was able to secure P2.
- Carlos Sainz’s lap was absolutely beautiful.
- Lando slots in at P3 for McLaren and his attempt to try to dig into Max’s Driver Championship lead.
- However, with Charles getting P4, this could be a good weekend for Ferrari. McLaren (first in Constructor’s Championship) has only one driver in the top 10, Red Bull (second in Constructor’s Championship) also only has one driver in the top 10, but Ferrari (third in the Constructor’s Championship) has two. If both cars finish, I can guarantee, Ferrari jumps to P2 in that championship.
- Kevin Magnussen outqualifying Hulkenberg is rare but cool to see him in what is likely his last races in Formula 1.
The starting grid:
- Carlos Sainz
- Max Verstappen
- Lando Norris
- Charles Leclerc
- George Russell
- Lewis Hamilton
- Kevin Magnussen
- Pierre Gasly
- Alex Albon
- Nico Hulkenberg
- Yuki Tsunoda
- Liam Lawson
- Fernando Alonso
- Lance Stroll
- Valtteri Bottas
- Franco Colapinto
- Oscar Piastri
- Sergio Perez
- Zhou Guanyu
- Esteban Ocon (starting in the pitlane)
The Race
The start was crazy, there was some drama, quiet parts, and then some excitement to end the race. It was a pretty good race. I didn’t feel it was as exciting as last week, but for Mexico this was not boring.
- The start was chaotic. Max gets a great start and takes P1. Further back, Yuki, Albon and Gasly are involved in an incident that saw Albon hit Yuki who has a really bad crash. He was ok, but Albon and Yuki are knocked out immediately.
- The safety car is out for quite a while. I was curious how this would impact the overall tires and pit strategies, but I don’t think it really had much of an impact.
- Perez gets a great start to jump 5 spots, but after replay it clearly shows him that he’s not lined up correctly. His radio message saying he had a great start showed he wasn’t paying attention. I was not impressed with him today. He was acting like an old man with Liam Lawson that was completely unnecessary.
- At the restart, Max does a good job, but Carlos sticks to him and in lap 9 takes the lead. He wouldn’t relinquish it.
- Max and Lando involved in another spat. This time in two corners on the same lap. Charles used the opportunity to get around both of them into P2. This time there was no grey, I thought he was out of line. The first incident could be argued they both were at fault a little bit but the second incident was clearly Max driving Lando off the track. Lando does not get around, but Max does earn himself two 10 second penalties. The question is if he’s going to learn anything from this. I doubt it. By keeping Lando behind him, he was able to separate Lando from the Ferraris.
- After the pits, Max drops to P6 and appears to have no opportunity to catch up to the Mercedes in P4 and P5.
- Lando is able to catch up with Charles. On lap 63, he loses the car. I’m surprised he didn’t crash, but Lando gets around him to secure P2.
- There is drama at the end with Mercedes as Lewis attempted to pass George for about 10 laps before finally getting it done.
- With the gap between Charles and Lewis, the Ferrari is able to get a free pit stop for the attempt at the fastest lap.
- Red Bull also calls in Sergio to try for a fastest lap to deny a point to either Lando or Charles. Charles knocks out purple sectors and takes the fastest lap away. Sergio does not get it. Unbelievable weekend for Sergio. After this weekend, I still contend that he shouldn’t have his seat with Red Bull.
- It was exciting to see that both Haas score. Magnussen is in P7!
- Piastri had a good recovery drive to get into P8.
- Pierre Gasly is able to stay on to get Alpine a point.
There was a pretty good swing in the Championships.
For the Driver’s Championsips, Lando gets +10. He’s now 47 behind Max. There are 4 race weekends left.
For the Constructors Championships, Ferrari jumps over Red Bull to take P2 by a considerable margin. McLaren gets 22 points to extend the lead to 566. Ferrari jumps to 537, just 29 behind McLaren. Red Bull falls to 512 after Max penalizes himself by being Max and Checo being Checo. I’d still put money on Max taking the Driver’s Championship, but after the last two weekends I don’t think McLaren is going to run away with it.
Here’s how things ended:
- Carlos Sainz (+25)
- Lando Norris (+18)
- Charles Leclerc (+16 with fastest lap)
- Lewis Hamilton (+12)
- George Russell (+10)
- Max Verstappen (+8)
- Kevin Magnussen (+6)
- Oscar Piastri (+4)
- Nico Hulkenberg (+2)
- Pierre Gasly (+1)
- Lance Stroll
- Franco Colapinto
- Esteban Ocon
- Valterri Bottas
- Zhou Guanyu
- Liam Lawson
- Sergio Perez
- Fernando Alonso (DNF)
- Alex Albon (DNF)
- Yuki Tsunoda (DNF)
I’ll see you next week after the Brazil GP.
formula 1