Mexican GP: Verstappen 14th win in F1 2022

Verstappen dominated to capture his 14th victory of 2022 and set a new record for single-season wins after acing the start from pole and once it became evident well before of the final laps that his medium tyres would hold up. Sergio Perez finished third, ahead of George Russell, with the Ferrari drivers a minute back in fifth and sixth place. Verstappen jumped ahead of Russell and swung right in front of the Mercedes on the long run down to the first corner, with Russell gaining on the Red Bull’s slipstream to run ahead of Hamilton and Perez. Russell pushed to the outside line just before the brakes for Turn 1 but ended up just following Verstappen into the right-hander and deep towards the grass runoff on the outside.

Russell bounced over the kerbs in Turn 2 as Verstappen sped through undisturbed, with Hamilton by this top alongside his teammate and getting ahead with a faster drive out of Turn 3. Russell passed Hamilton there but ran out of room and had to climb over the kerbs, losing momentum and being jumped by the swiftly approaching Perez into Turn 4 at the end of the second straight. Verstappen swiftly moved out of the DRS danger zone at the end of lap one of 71, with Hamilton hot on his tail after starting on medium tyres, as did Russell, as opposed to the used softs assigned to the two Red Bulls.

Picking Pace

The margin between the leaders fluctuated somewhat but stayed around 1.5 seconds while Perez and Russell ran a few seconds more adrift and fell further behind over the rest of the first stint. Verstappen increased his speed near the end of the first quarter of the race in an attempt to break the tow to the Mercedes, but Hamilton was able to hang on just over two seconds behind before the leader’s softs began to fail. Verstappen’s lead had shrunk from 2.4 seconds to 1.6 seconds by the time he arrived at the conclusion of lap 25 – one tour after Perez had pitted and had a sluggish left-rear swap that kept him stationary for 5.0 seconds.

Mercedes left Hamilton out, his mediums displaying no of the heavy worn patches that had been visible on Verstappen’s left-front soft before he stopped. However, Hamilton was only out for four laps before being hauled in to switch to the hard tyres, with Mercedes instead keeping Russell out for a significantly longer first stint. As a result, he led until the conclusion of lap 34, with Verstappen cycling back into the lead at half-distance with a nearly seven-second lead and Hamilton under increased pressure from Perez following closely behind – the Mexican driver having cleared the off-pace Ferrari pair after his tardy stop.

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Late Race stoppage for Alonso

A late race stoppage for Fernando Alonso, who had been running comfortably in seventh before an engine issue caused him to lose pace and eventually stop in the Turn 1 runoff, caused little disruption other than a brief virtual safety car period on laps 65-66 as the Alpine was quickly moved behind the barriers. Perez finished 2.9 seconds behind Hamilton after falling further behind shortly before the VSC, with Russell fourth and visibly dissatisfied with having to run the hards in his second stint. That was only his middle stint, as Mercedes pitted Russell for softs for a final lap shot at the fastest lap bonus point, which he successfully achieved with a 1m20.153s.

Anonymous race for Ferrari

Carlos Sainz led Charles Leclerc home in an unremarkable race for Ferrari, with the Spaniard finishing 58.8 seconds behind Verstappen and the only action for the duo comprising Perez’s post-stop passing and Sainz doing the same to Alonso after his own service to switch from softs to mediums. The suspense to the finish involved McLaren’s Daniel Ricciardo, who was the final vehicle on the lead lap and 10 seconds behind his teammate.