Red Bull Motorsports
F1
Albon finishes 5th as Verstappen pulls off a stunning recovery in Mexico
Aston Martin Red Bull Racing's Alex Albon capped a fast and mature maiden Mexican Grand Prix as team-mate Max Verstappen battled from 20th to a fantastic top six finish.
At the end of a dramatic qualifying on Saturday, Verstappen thought he had his second career pole position in the bag, but a failure to slow down for yellow flags following Valtteri Bottas’s sizeable crash in Q3 earned the Dutch driver a three place grid penalty. This handed pole to Ferrari's Charles Leclerc and left Verstappen fourth, one place ahead of team-mate Albon, who enjoyed his career-best qualifying result.
The start of the race was fast, furious and extremely messy. Following the 800m run down to the first right hand corner it was Leclerc who maintained his lead from team-mate Sebastian Vettel, as a fast starting Verstappen took to the grass in an attempt to take third away from a wayward Lewis Hamilton. Albon avoided the melee and slotted into third.
After an aggressive start, a Virtual Safety Car was triggered before the end of Lap 1 to clear some on-track debris and at the restart Verstappen found himself down in eighth, behind the Mercedes of Bottas and the McLaren of Lando Norris.
On Lap 5, Verstappen pulled of a sublime and rarely seen move on Bottas under braking into the stadium section, only to lose the place on the long start-finish straight under DRS. To make matters worse for the double Mexican Grand Prix winner, Verstappen's right rear tyre was punctured by slight contact with Bottas, sending the Dutch driver to the back of the field.
At the front of the field the top four drivers remained relatively spread out, with Leclerc leading Vettel by just over a second and Albon maintaining a gap of just over three seconds behind the leader as the race settled down. By Lap 11 the Aston Martin Red Bull rookie was the fastest man on the track and one lap later was within DRS range of Vettel's Ferrari.
By half race distance Verstappen had made his way into the points, as race leader Vettel finally pitted on Lap 37, handing the lead to Leclerc and rejoining in fourth behind Albon.
On Lap 44, Leclerc's second stop was hindered by a slow right rear tyre change and one lap later Albon took his final stop, with the Aston Martin Red Bull Racing crew pulling off a sub-two second job and slotting him back in fifth, just behind the Ferrari driver and the leading trio comprised of Hamilton, Vettel and Bottas.
Entering the final 10 laps and with the leading five positions unchanged, Verstappen had made his way up to a remarkable sixth place behind team-mate Albon, leaving the seven-time Grand Prix winner to rue what could have been if he'd started from pole and avoided tangling with Hamilton at the first corner.
In the closing laps the anticipated fight back from Vettel failed to materialise and the crescendo of the Mexican Grand Prix never ignited into a battle for the win. Hamilton went on to claim victory ahead of Vettel and Bottas, with Albon taking fifth ahead of a hard-charging Verstappen, who salvaged sixth and earned the Driver of the Day award.
