Carlos Sainz flew at the high altitude of the Mexico City circuit and takes a dominant win in his Ferrari as the red cars continue their great form. Talking of poor form, Max Verstappen cops two lots of 10 second penalties for driving Lando Norris off the rack and he loses some ground to Norris in the Championship. To cover all of that and more is our 2024 Mexican F1 Grand Prix Result Summary.
This 2024 Mexican Grand Prix Result, Laps that Matter summary, Review & Ratings which gives you just enough to catch up with. With just a hint of cynicism, bias, opinion and colour. The perfect bite sized review for those who couldn’t be bothered, or don’t have enough time.
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Latest 2024 F1 Driver Rankings – from Singapore GP
2024 Mexican F1 Grand Prix Result Race Summary
Didn’t see the race live? Don’t have time to watch the whole race? Here’s where we capture the laps where stuff happened. We write these live as we go, sort of like a minute by minute for the football, but marginally more interesting.
Setting the scene – Ferrari continue their good form with Carlos Sainz taking pole ahead of Max Verstappen. He’s ahead of his nearest Championship rivals which helps. Although after the turn one shenanigans last weekend it may not. Further back the Mercedes looked slow while being quickish, and the Haas’ surprised as they continue to climb the midfield. The big stories were the two drivers that were knock out in Q1. One was a surprise in Oscar Piastri who was one of two driver to feature in every Q3 session this season and who topped the previous P3 session. The other was Sergio Perez.
GRID (Starting Order) – SAI VER NOR LEC RUS HAM MAG GAS ALB HUL
Lap 1 – Max Verstappen gets away better than pole sitter Carlos Sainz from the dirtier side of the long, long run to the first corner and hogs the inside line going into Turn 1. Carlos Sainz cuts the corner but gives the lead back before turn 4. The rest of the front runners tip toe through the first few corners. Further back there’s an RB in the wall before the braking zone on the outside. It was Yuki Tsunoda in the wall and a few hundred metres away Alex Albon confirms his part of the accident with retirement. Replays show the accident was caused by Pierre Gasly who shifted left heading into turn 1 just as Tsunoda was shifting right. The meat in the sandwich was Albon. Gasly continued, the other two didn’t. Sergio Perez is up to 13th from 18th, it was as good as his afternoon was going to get. Piastri was on the wrong side of the first corner shenanigans and is only 18th.
SAFETY CAR DEPLOYED
ORDER – VER SAI NOR LEC HAM RUS MAG HUL GAS LAW
While the Safety Car was tooling around in front, a penalty notice came up for Sergio Perez for a false start. Looks like he forgot where the line was to start from. He gets a five second penalty. More amusing was Charles Leclerc advising his radio that his water bottle was splashing him when he was weaving to keep the tyres warm behind the Safety Car.
SAFETY CAR EXITS
Lap 7 – Max Verstappen clears out on the restart after bunching them up nicely through the old baseball stadium. With no DRS allowed there were zero overtaking moves going into Turn 1.
Lap 9 – Carlos Sainz stays within the DRS gap and passes Max Verstappen for the lead. It was a late, deep dive, but not as bad as we were about to see. Verstappen fought for a few corners but the Ferrari had more.
ORDER – SAI VER NOR LEC HAM RUS MAG HUL GAS LAW
Lap 10 – Lando Norris is now right on Max Verstappen’s tail and Norris has a look into turn four but Verstappen drives him off the circuit and Norris has to take to the grass. He then has to give the temporary lead back and in the process of giving Max Verstappen back his second place by turn eight the Red Bull driver again pushes the McLaren off the track again. This time Verstappen runs wide with him and Charles Leclerc snatches second from both of them giving Ferrari a 1-2.
ORDER – SAI LEC VER NOR HAM RUS MAG HUL GAS LAW
Lap 11 – Verstappen faces two penalties here, but given he got zero penalties for similar driving last race, who knows what he’ll get. Probably nothing. Although, the driving was much worse here.
Lap 14 – Martin Brundle calls the TV replays of Verstappen-Norris outrageous from Verstappen, and the F1 stewards agree, and give Verstappen a 10 Second Penalty.
Lap 14 – Fernando Alonso retires his Aston Martin with car troubles in his 400th race start.
Lap 18 – TV cameras focus on Sergio Perez and Liam Lawson fighting on track for 10th place. Perez pushes Lawson off the track at turn four while Lawson pushed Perez off the track a corner later and Lawson keeps 10th place after a little bit of contact. The two could be fighting off track for the 2025 Red Bull drive. Perez also pushes Stroll off the track
Lap 19 – Stewards hand down another ten second penalty for Max Verstappen for the second of the two incidents on Lap 10. That’s 20 seconds all told for Max. Currently he’d drop to 11th place. Or thereabouts.
Lap 21 – A feisty battle between Piastri and Colapinto for 12th place which the McLaren driver takes. A few laps later Piastri takes 11th from Lance Stroll. Some progress but a little underwhelming his charge through the field from the McLaren. Perez pits for new tyres and a change in scenery at the tail of the field.
Lap 25 – With all the pushing and shoving it’s easy to forget the Ferraris up front in a quietly confident 1-2. Sainz five seconds to the good of Leclerc who is another six seconds in front of Max Verstappen.
ORDER – SAI LEC VER NOR RUS HAM MAG HUL GAS LAW
Lap 27 – Max Verstappen pits and takes four new tyres and 20 seconds while he’s there. He drops to 15th behind Ocon. Which is still in front of his team mate.
Lap 33 – Carlos Sainz is the last of the front runners to pit for new tyres. He retains the lead of course.
ORDER – SAI LEC NOR LAW PIA RUS HAM COL VER BOT
Lap 34 – A great battle between Liam Lawson, Oscar Piastri and both Mercedes drivers for a few laps. The Mercedes driver eventually win out on fresher tyres.
Lap 41 – Oscar Piastri finally pits for new tyres. He rejoins in 12th which is ahead of the 16th place Liam Lawson and Sergio Perez are squabbling over. Without too much incident this time.
Lap 46 – Lando Norris starts his campaign for second place with a fastest lap. Meanwhile Max Verstappen is up to 6th already. But Lewis Hamilton is in front, which could be interesting.
ORDER – SAI LEC NOR RUS HAM VER MAG HUL COL PIA
Lap 55 – The Mercedes argue over 5th place. Russell ahead of Lewis Hamilton. Hamilton wins the Battle of Britain/Mercedes eventually.
Lap 57 – Oscar Piastri gets more points with a pass on Nico Hulkenberg for 8th. Kevin Magnussen appears too far ahead in 7th. In fairness, Magnusen deserves that place more anyway.
Lap 59 – With backmarkers out of the way, it’s a straight fight for second between Leclerc and Norris. He’s just over a second behind.
Lap 62 – Oscar Piastri told to go and get Max Verstappen. He’ll need to jump Kevin Magnussen first. Talking of jumping Lando Norris is all over Charles Leclerc.
Lap 63 – Charles Leclerc wobbles coming out of the final corner on Lap 62 and nearly puts it into the wall as he comes into pit straight. Some driving to keep it out of the wall at 200 kph. That leaves Lando Norris second and 7.8 seconds behind Carlos Sainz with seven laps to go.
Lap 66 – Lewis Hamilton finally gets past his Mercedes team mate for fourth. Meanwhile further down the field Liam Lawson is clipped as he tries to pass Franco Colapinto and has to pit for new front wing. He rejoins last, and not too far behind Sergio Perez.
Lap 68 – Despite fastest laps, Lando Norris has closed within 6 seconds only of Carlos Sainz.
Lap 69 – Ferrari pit Charles Leclerc to steal fastest lap. Which he manages to do and steals that off Liam Lawson, who stole it off Lando Norris.
Lap 70 – Sergio Perez also pits to steal fastest lap. Or this is a Daniel Ricciardo special parting gift type of thing?
FINAL LAP – Carlos Sainz holds on to win for Ferrari, a first for the red cars in Mexico since Alain Prost won an equally exciting race in 1990. Lando Norris does his Championship chance no harm with second and takes advantage of Max Verstappen’s double penalty afternoon and 6th place.
FINAL ORDER (Across the line) – SAI NOR LEC HAM RUS VER MAG PIA HUL GAS
Here we go through the field and highlight the very best (Great) of the race, and the plodders, the over-ambitious, the out of luck, and simply hopeless (Grape).
These points get added to our Driver of the Season scores. points for a great nomination, and -5 for the worst or grapest driver in the pack. Then it is +2 /-2 for honourable or dishonourable mentions.
THE GREAT-EST – CARLOS SAINZ
Normally any driver given the arse from his current seat would get a bit sooky, but not Carlos Sainz who pulls out one of his best drives to win. A decisive move on Max Verstappen for the lead and held off Lando Norris at the end. Given Lewis Hamilton’s downturn of form in recent races, Ferrari may have signing remorse. Probably not as bad a Red Bull though.
HONOURABLE MENTIONS
LANDO NORRIS – Didn’t quite get it done in qualifying but laid down a marker in the race. First statement was against Max Verstappen where he showed he’s not going to take any sh!t. Then to fight for the win against Sainz shows he never gives up. A modest gain on Verstappen on the Championship, with thoughts on what could have been after the stewarding in Austin.
CHARLES LECLERC – Not as good as his team mate today but gives himself an outside chance at the title.
KEVIN MAGNUSSEN – Best of the rest in qualifying and race in a magnificent performance.
PIERRE GASLY – Another solid weekend.
THE GRAPE-EST – MAX VERSTAPPEN AND SERGIO PEREZ
A terrible time for both Red Bull drivers. Max Verstappen’s forceful defending of position came back to bite him and Sergio Perez’s general lack of form is making his 2025 seem highly unlikely. Red Bull lose second in the constructors to Ferrari now.
DISHONOURABLE MENTIONS
YUKI TSUNODA – Making it three Red Bull family drivers in the sh!t list. Tsunoda crashed in qualifying (his fault) and at the first corner (not his fault). The end result was zero points and zero laps completed.
OSCAR PIASTRI – Threw away a good race result by missing out in a qualifying exit in Q1. Made a little progress in the race, but not as good as expected. A missed opportunity.
ALEX ALBON – Unlucky in the first corner accident, but it was a second crash of the weekend.
Was it a good race, loads of action, a tense ending, a surprise result or DNF, or just a big, fat, snooze-fest?
We rate the big race itself, so we know which races to go back and watch in the off season or one to simply remember the winner for the post season quiz nights.
ON TRACK ACTION – 8 / 10
Plenty of action through with a good long straight for overtaking. The early action with Verstappen v Norris was top shelf entertainment. It thinned out a little for action towards the end.
ANY SURPRISES? – 5 / 5
Ferrari pace, actual penalties applied to Max Verstappen, Haas’ form. Plenty of surprises.
SEASON IMPORTANCE – 5 / 5
The title race gets closer as Max Verstappen ends up 6th after his 20 second bonanza
ENDING 6 / 10
Not as fascinating a finish as last weekend’s ending in Austin, but enough tension with Leclerc’s off and Norris chasing Sainz hard. Plus Piastri chasing Magnussen and the two Mercedes.
OVERALL RATING 24 / 30
The second leg of the triple header was a good race, but even more important for the end of year titles.
2024 F1 Race Rankings
R19 – US Grand Prix….23/30
R18 – Singapore Grand Prix…10/30
R17 – Azerbaijan Grand Prix…25/30
R16 – Italian Grand Prix…21/30
R15 – Dutch Grand Prix…15/30
R14 – Belgian Grand Prix…23/30
R13 – Hungarian Grand Prix…19/30
R12 – British Grand Prix…25/30
R11 – Austrian Grand Prix…27/30
R10 – Spanish Grand Prix…19/30
R09 – Canadian Grand Prix…22/30
R08 – Monaco Grand Prix…17/30
R07 – Emilia-Romagna Grand Prix…23/30
R06 – Miami Grand Prix…23/30
R05 – Chinese Grand Prix…15/30
R04 – Japanese Grand Prix…18/30
R03 – Australian Grand Prix…23/30
R02 – Saudi Arabia Grand Prix…9/30
R01 – Bahrain Grand Prix…13/30
2024 F1 Season Power Rankings
Stay tuned for our Power Rankings from the race soon as it is currently being calculated and will be ready on Monday.
Why not check the latest race ratings – 2024 Singapore Grand Prix Ratings
Or our 2024 F1 Half Season Report.
Or check out our 2023 Season Driver Rankings and Stats
