MAXGATECRASHES LEWIS’SPARTY...

PLAYS IT SAFE FOR FIFTH WIN

Max Verstappen scored his fifth grand prix victory with a dominant drive in the Mexican Grand Prix last Sunday. But the final laps were not entirely stress free. On the Red Bull pitwall, his engineers were praying there wouldn’t be a repeat of the mechanical problem that caused second-placed Daniel Ricciardo to retire from the race.

Verstappen ran a cautious final few laps to take a well-deserved win, with the two Ferraris rounding out the podium positions. But Sebastian Vettel’s second place – and more significantly Lewis Hamilton’s fourth – was enough to bring the drivers’ championship to a conclusion.

After the race, as they emerged from their cars in the Foro Sol stadium section of the lap, Vettel went across to applaud Hamilton on equalling the great Juan Manuel Fangio’s five world championships.

“I congratulated him as he’s been superb all year and the title was welldeserved,” said Vettel. “Number five is something unbelievable and I told him to keep pushing because I need him to be at his best to fight against next year.”

It had been a difficult afternoon for Hamilton, who spent 71 laps around the Autodromo Hermanos Rodriguez nursing his tyres. He finished over a minute behind Verstappen, while his team-mate Valtteri Bottas (in fifth) was a lap down. Hamilton said it had been a “horrible” race.

“I got a great start and was working my way up and I really don’t know what happened after that,” said the Mercedes man. “I was just trying to hold on and bring the car home.”

Fourth place in Mexico, coming 50 years after Graham Hill won his second world title at this venue, cemented his position as one of the greatest drivers of all-time and just two titles short of Michael Schumacher’s record.

Qualifying

A joyful Ricciardo admitted he was “holding a lot in” as he celebrated his first pole position since Monaco and Red Bull’s first front-row lock-out since Austin 2013 – its first of the hybrid turbo era.

The Australian eclipsed his teammate by just 0.026s, beating him on the final run of qualifying and upsetting the form book as Verstappen had set the fastest time in all three practice sessions prior to qualifying.

Verstappen was quickest of anyone in his first run in Q3, stopping the clocks with a 1m14.785s lap, nearly two tenths ahead of the opposition, despite not having the outright fastest pace in any of the three sectors.

But on his final timed lap, Ricciardo was imperious, not putting a wheel out of place to record only the third pole of his career (and his first outside of Monaco). His team-mate was clearly upset that he had been denied his first pole position and as he parked his car on the start-finish line at the end of qualifying, eased his foot off the brake to knock the second-placed marker board over in disgust.

“The whole qualifying was crap,” said the Dutchman when he climbed disconsolately out of his car. “The engine braking was not how I wanted it and I was getting a lot of rear locking on downshifts when I came off the throttle. I had to go forward with the brake balance to stabilise the whole car.”

In the fight for the title battle, Hamilton took third – one place ahead of Vettel. The Brit was much happier with his car’s performance in comparison to its tardy pace on Friday.

Behind Vettel came the two Finns, Bottas from Kimi Raikkonen then the two Renaults and Saubers making up the top 10. The latter two teams ran their quickest Q2 laps on the faster but fragile hypersoft tyre.

Hamilton’s best hope for Turn 1 on Sunday would be to get ahead of both Red Bulls, but he was also conscious of what happened last year when he picked up a puncture thanks to contact with Vettel in the first series of corners.

The run down from the start to the braking zone at Turn 1 is the longest of the year – at 800 metres – with plenty of scope for slipstreaming for those behind the front row. Mercedes team boss Toto Wolff said the grid had potential for “carnage” down the straight and through the opening corners.

“You have the two Red Bulls who have the least straight-line speed on the front row, then us, followed by the Ferraris who are almost 10kph up on everybody else. When I visualise it, I hope we come out with two cars intact…”

Race

In the event, the fears for chaos in the opening couple of corners were misguided as the first five rows managed to negotiate their way around the first sequence of bends unharmed.

Hamilton made the best start, instantly getting ahead of Ricciardo, who bogged down with too much wheelspin off the line.

As the Mercedes split the two Red Bulls, he came alongside Verstappen, but the Dutchman held the inside line as they approached the braking zone for Turn 1 with the Ferraris and Bottas’s Mercedes boxed in behind the front pair. Hamilton, knowing he couldn’t afford not to finish the race, braked early and allowed Verstappen to take the lead.

Behind the front two, Bottas had

made a strong start from fifth to get up to third, but he was out-manoeuvred by Ricciardo, who was trying to claw back lost ground. As the field entered Turns 4 and 5, Vettel went wheel-to-wheel with Bottas’s Mercedes and managed to take fourth – with the pair making the slightest of contact on the short blast up to Turn 6.

Although the frontrunners had managed not to trip over each other, further back Force India’s Esteban Ocon hit one of the Renaults and broke his front wing. The debris from the incident then flew into the path of Fernando Alonso and lodged in his Mclaren. Two laps later the Spaniard stopped at Turn 11 to retire with a loss of water pressure and that prompted the deployment of the virtual safety car.

Once racing resumed, Verstappen was easily able to extend his lead over Hamilton, while the Mercedes came under pressure from Ricciardo behind. Right from the off, Hamilton was hampered by the graining in his Pirellis, in particular the front-left, so his team made the decision to stop him (and Bottas) for fresh rubber as early as lap 11.

In contrast the two Ferraris were the last of the frontrunners to pit, delaying their tyre stops until lap 17. A lap prior to that, Hamilton had caught Raikkonen and bravely duked it out with the Ferrari around Turns 2 and 3, giving Mercedes’s team boss Wolff a scare with his bravery.

When the first round of stops were over, Verstappen held an eight-second lead over Hamilton, followed by Ricciardo, Vettel, Bottas and Raikkonen.

On lap 29, Vettel was challenging Riccardo for third place when the virtual safety car was deployed for the second time in the race. This time Carlos Sainz had come to a sudden halt – thanks to an electrical shutdown – in the stadium section of the lap.

The VSC led to Force India pitting local hero Sergio Perez for his first stop. The Mexican had started 13th, but had moved up to seventh in the race and the timely intervention of the VSC was perfect for his strategy.

When he emerged from the pits he was right behind Charles Leclerc’s Sauber in ninth and the pair was just ahead of the Ricciardo-vettel duel for third. As they both tried to weave around the traffic, Vettel took advantage and nabbed the place off the Red Bull.

Unfortunately for the Mexican faithful, Perez’s strong drive came undone a few laps later when he retired with a long brake pedal.

Vettel’s strong pace meant once he’d dispatched of Ricciardo, he was soon on the tail of his championship rival. On lap 38 he got a run on Hamilton into Turn 1 and despite covering the inside, the Brit knew there was no point defending too hard. His concern now was holding back Ricciardo and, eight laps later, the Australian had closed onto his gearbox.

On lap 47, Hamilton locked up defending into Turn 1 and lost the place to Ricciardo. Then he was immediately on the radio to his team to say: “These tyres are dead guys.”

He was called in for his second stop later that lap and switched to a set of used ultrasofts. Both Verstappen and Vettel also took the opportunity to stop for new Pirellis, but once Red Bull looked at the condition of the race leader’s tyres, decided to keep Ricciardo out – as he’d inherited second place back from Vettel.

In the closing stages – on much older rubber – the Australian defended brilliantly from Vettel and Red Bull looked set to achieve a 1-2. But with nine laps remaining, an ominous puff of smoke emerged from the back of Ricciardo’s car and he was forced to retire with a suspected hydraulic failure.

“This sucks and it is at a point where I feel why should I even come on a Sunday? There hasn’t been a clean weekend for so long due to many different reasons and it’s breaking my heart,” said a dejected Ricciardo. “Deflated comes to mind but this feels deeper than that. It just doesn’t seem to happen for me on a Sunday.”

When Verstappen saw his team-mate retire, he asked his team to turn his engine down to ensure he got to the finish. The satisfaction of winning, certainly made up for the disappointment in losing pole the day before.

Understandably all the fanfare was reserved for Hamilton, taking fourth place to wrap up his fifth world championship. Speaking to the press after the race he was asked about the achievement of matching Juan Manuel Fangio.

While Hamilton was respectful in victory, so too was Vettel, clearly drained now the title fight was finally over. But in an extraordinary moment of sportsmanship, the Ferrari man entered Mercedes’s engineering debrief after the race and congratulated the team and his former colleague James Allison on their success. It was a classy act in what has been a hard-fought battle. For Vettel, 2019 can’t come soon enough. For Hamilton, who is driving better than ever, he too, probably can’t wait to close in on Schumacher’s title record…