Red Bull Motorsports
F1
Double podium keeps good times rolling for Oracle Red Bull Racing in Mexico
Max Verstappen set a new single-season win record and Sergio Pérez joined the world champion on the podium as Oracle Red Bull Racing broke a pole-to-win hoodoo in Mexico.
Part of this story
The Formula One records just keep coming for Oracle Red Bull Racing and Max Verstappen.
Two races after the Dutchman won his second successive world drivers' title in Japan, and one race after the team won its first constructors' championship in nine years in the United States, Sunday's Mexican Grand Prix saw another entry into the sport's history books. Verstappen's 14th victory for the year set a single-season record for one driver in one campaign, and extended Red Bull's rollicking run in 2022.
Verstappen's victory was the ninth in succession for Red Bull, matching the best run ever enjoyed by the team when Sebastian Vettel won the final nine races of the 2013 season. It meant the team was represented on the podium for the 19th consecutive race, another record. By adding 25 points to his world championship tally, Verstappen (416 points) surpassed Lewis Hamilton's tally of 413 points from 2019 to set a new benchmark in points for one season – and there's still two races to go.
Even better for the team? Home hero Sergio Pérez repeated his third-place result at the Autodromo Hermanos Rodriguez from last year and sent the massive weekend crowd of 395,902 fans home happy, with Checo reclaiming second in the world drivers' standings behind Verstappen as Red Bull looks to finish 1-2 for the first time.
Verstappen controlled the pace on his one-stop strategy
© Getty Images/Red Bull Content Pool
The 20th round of the 2022 season wasn't the most riveting – the top six finishers were in positions 1-6 after four corners of the 71-lap race, and was a strategic slow-burn of a race rather than a flat-out blast. It was a race where patience and tyre management counted as much as sheer speed, and – as has been the case for the bulk of the season – Verstappen had the rest covered.
Here's how a record-breaking Sunday shook out for Verstappen in Mexico City.
Metronomic Max saves his tyres to sail home
Verstappen had the car and the momentum on his side coming into Sunday's race, but starting on pole in Mexico City has typically been a recipe for misery, given third place on the grid has been the starting slot for the previous two winners at the circuit.
The longest run into the first corner of any track on the calendar (1,063 metres) often means starting on the second row and using a slipstream to slingshot into first place is the better option. But Verstappen started on soft tyres to allow for a speedier getaway when the lights went out, even if that meant his tyre durability would be compromised later on. He duly held his lead into the first corner and cleared off, but relinquished that advantage to Hamilton on Lap 25 when he pitted for medium-compound rubber.
Hamilton pitted three laps later and fitted hard tyres in a clear message that he'd be running to the end, so the pressure was then on Verstappen to baby his medium tyres to the chequered flag or risk taking another pit stop and losing track position to the Mercedes. It was a balancing act Verstappen aced, and as the laps counted down, the Dutchman slowly but surely broke Hamilton's resistance.
Verstappen defied history to lead from pole into the first turn
© Getty Images/Red Bull Content Pool
By the finish, Verstappen was 15.186 seconds ahead – which actually represents the least emphatic of what are now four wins in Mexico, the previous three coming by more than 16 seconds.
"The start helped me out a lot for the rest of the race, I had to stay in the lead after Turn 1," Verstappen said after he became the first pole-sitter to finish on the podium in Mexico since 2016.
"You're also on a different strategy to the other cars around us, but again an incredible result. The pace of the car again was really nice. We had to look after our tyres because it was a very long stint on the medium, but we made it work."
Verstappen's 14th win in 20 races this season saw him surpass Michael Schumacher (13 wins in 18 races for Ferrari in 2004) and Vettel (13 wins in 19 races for Red Bull in 2013) for the most victories in one campaign, and he was thrilled to achieve the feat in such of such a raucous crowd.
"It's an incredible atmosphere and we love to come here,' he said.
"It's been an incredible year so far, so we are definitely enjoying it and we will try to go for more."
First-lap pass puts Pérez on the podium
Pérez warmed up for his home Grand Prix weekend with a Red Bull showcar run around the streets of his home town Guadalajara, where 130,000 screaming fans could be heard over the noise of the old-school V8 engine powering the RB7, cheering their hero's every move.
You didn't need to consult a timing screen to know where Pérez was on the track on Sunday. You just listened for where the crowd was at its loudest – and it was never louder than on the first lap when Pérez capitalised on a loss of momentum from front-row starter George Russell (Mercedes) to ambush the Briton into Turn 4, immediately placing himself in podium contention from fourth on the grid.
Passing Russell on the first lap set up Pérez's race
© Getty Images/Red Bull Content Pool
Checo pitted earliest of the front-runners (Lap 23) to switch to medium-compound tyres to go on the attack, but a slow stop scuppered his chances of handling Hamilton, and he eventually finished just under three seconds behind the seven-time world champion for a 10th podium this season. Curiously, it's also the first time he's finished third all season.
"I gave my best today at the start, really pushed hard," he said.
"Unfortunately we had a little bit of a bad stop which prevented us from undercutting Lewis. Overtaking is so difficult, as soon as I got behind him it was really difficult to follow, so I had to stay in third."
With 15 world championship points at home for the second straight year, and with Ferrari's Charles Leclerc finishing a low-key sixth, Pérez re-took second place in the standings from the Monegasque (280 points to 275) as their season-long battle continues to ebb and flow.
"Given how difficult overtaking was today, I think it was key," he said of his first-lap pass of Russell.
"I thought we were going to be a little closer, but unfortunately it didn't work out for us today. I really wanted more today, but third place is still a good day."
Time penalty proves costly for Gasly
Mexico was a case of so near yet so far for Pierre Gasly. The Scuderia AlphaTauri driver finished 11th and one place out of the points behind Alfa Romeo's Valtteri Bottas by just half a second after 71 laps, his late-race comeback falling agonisingly short.
Gasly, from 14th on grid, was hit with a five-second penalty when he was deemed to have forced Aston Martin's Lance Stroll off the track at Turn 4. But he wasn't able to reprise his outstanding run to fourth place at the same circuit 12 months ago.
Gasly finished agonisingly close to the points
© Getty Images/Red Bull Content Pool
Gasly's team-mate Yuki Tsunoda was the race's first retirement on Lap 51. The Japanese driver was forced to stop with damage to the right rear of his car after contact with Daniel Ricciardo (McLaren) at Turn 6. The Australian was given a 10-second penalty for causing the incident. Tsunoda was ahead of Gasly at the time and on track for back-to-back points finishes after he was 10th in Austin seven days earlier.
Check out more F1 articles and videos
Ricciardo winds back the clock
Ricciardo's final season at McLaren has been mostly lacklustre, but the Australian came alive after his penalty for the Tsunoda incident to storm through the field on soft tyres to finish seventh, retaining the position even after his penalty was applied post-race and earning Driver of the Day status from the sport's fans for his swashbuckling final stint.
Elsewhere, Bottas holding off Gasly for the final point in 10th place was as significant for the Finn as it was damaging for the Frenchman. Bottas had scored 46 points in the first nine races of the year, but none in the following 10 Grands Prix before Sunday.
South to São Paulo
Just two rounds remain in the equal-longest (with last year) Formula One season ever, and it's a geographically tricky back-to-back that features two tracks at opposite ends of the history spectrum.
Before the season finale in Abu Dhabi (November 20), the series heads south from Mexico City to Brazil and the Autódromo José Carlos Pace. k It's known to everyone in F1 as Interlagos for the packed neighbourhood in which it resides, for the São Paulo Grand Prix (November 13).
F1 first visited Interlagos in 1972. The place oozes history, and a roll call of winners that reads like Brazilian motorsport royalty with Emerson Fittipaldi, Carlos Pace, Nelson Piquet and, of course, Ayrton Senna among the local drivers who've sent the F1-loving Paulistas into raptures over the years.
Verstappen has won here once in 2019. But arguably his best non-winning F1 drive came at Interlagos on a sodden track in 2016, when he finished third in his first Red Bull season. Pérez had his best result in 10 attempts at the circuit this time last year, when he finished fourth.
Part of this story
