Max Verstappen claimed his third victory of the season in Mexico, taking advantage of a first-lap tussle between the Ferrari drivers.
The race was split in two parts by a heavy crash for Valtteri Bottas when he suffered a suspension failure at turn one. He was taken to the Medical Centre as a precaution and the race was red-flagged for almost 40 minutes while the barrier at turn one was repaired.Before the interruption, the order appeared to have settled, all the drivers having pitted at least once. Verstappen held the lead from the Ferrari pair, Leclerc leading a disgruntled Hamilton.
Hamilton lost the lead to Leclerc at the start after both went off at turn four. Leclerc rejoined in front of Hamilton, who lost second place to Verstappen, and though the stewards issued the leader a five-second time penalty his team mate wasn’t close enough to benefit.
Verstappen did take advantage, however, gaining the lead from Leclerc when the pair pitted together on lap 28. Hamilton came in the next time and resumed behind the pair of them.
Antonelli stayed out until lap 43 before pitting. He cursed when the Safety Car appeared shortly afterwards for Bottas’s crash, as he was close to being able to pit while the field was neutralised.
The field formed up on the grid for a second time, this time with Verstappen leading the two Ferraris and Antonelli. Hamilton had pitted under the Safety Car, dropping behind Antonelli, but the stewards chose to reimpose the original order, which also meant moving Pierre Gasly up three places to 10th.
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Leclerc made a poor getaway from second on the grid and Hamilton immediately attacked Verstappen at turn one. The pair made contact and Hamilton slotted in behind the Red Bull. Within a few laps the stewards cleared Verstappen over both the contact and his positioning in his grid box.
Antonelli regained his third place by passing Leclerc, who flat-spotted his front-left tyre when he locked up at the start. Norris caught Leclerc but was unable to pass the struggling Ferrari driver.
Verstappen pulled out of Overtake Mode range of Hamilton within a few laps, but the Ferrari driver had another opportunity to attack him when the Safety Car was deployed. Arvid Lindblad crashed out at turn two after tangling with Oscar Piastri. The stewards will investigate that incident after the race.
However Verstappen easily pulled clear of Hamilton after the rolling restart. They therefore finished in that order, two drivers with 11 world titles between them joined on the podium by the newest champion, Antonelli.
Despite his flat spot, Leclerc clung on to fourth place ahead of Norris. George Russell collected sixth place after serving a 10-second time penalty for knocking Isack Hadjar into a spin on the first lap.
Alpine capitalised on Lindblad’s retirement to cut into Racing Bulls’ points advantage. However Liam Lawson worked wonders from the pit lane to split the A526s, taking ninth place behind Franco Colapinto. The stewards looked into an incident between Gasly and Lawson but cleared both. However both Alpine drivers are under investigation for yellow flag infringements.
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