Just One Point: Lando Norris leads the Driver’s Championship for the first time since Abu Dhabi 2024 after a thirty second lead at the Mexican Grand Prix
Updated: May 2
The title race comes to a head at the Autódromo Hermanos Rodríguez track this weekend, Lando Norris taking the track by storm, now just one single point between him and Oscar Piastri after a unfortunate weekend yet again for the Australian Driver. Max Verstappen remains in title contention, just thirty-five points behind Piastri after his third place result at the Mexican Grand Prix.
Friday saw nine rookie drivers take to the track for FP1, replacing the likes of Lando Norris, George Russel and Max Verstappen taking a back seat to let them shine. Red Bull saw Arvid Lindblad take the place of Max Verstappen, a promising eighteen year old Red Bull academy driver racing for F2.
During the first free practice of the weekend, Lindblad finished the session above Red Bull’s Yuki Tsunoda in sixth place, highlighting his potential and his capabilities, we could possibly see the young driver in F1 soon, currently sitting at seventh in the Formula 2 Drivers Championship standings. This practice session gave these rookie drivers exposure and experience driving in an F1 car, as we anticipate their rise into F1 one day.
Lando Norris dominated the track after FP2 and going into Saturday he was one of the strongest looking drivers on the grid. The Ferraris had a good stint of results, Oscar Piastri hanging behind his teammate in both the practices. Saturday’s qualifying at the Mexican Grand Pirx saw Mercedes and Piastri struggling for pace while Ferrari dominated the field, putting in quick flying laps in Q1 and Q2.
Getting into Q3 both ferraris put in flying laps that landed them in P1 and P2 drawing to the last two minutes of qualifying. Here comes Lando Norris, storming the track, taking three purple sectors and flying to pole position, the Ferraris unable to jump ahead of him in their last flying laps. Piastri struggled in qualifying, finishing P8 in Q3, promoted to P7 after Carlos Sainz’s five grid place penalty, who originally qualified P7 dropping down to P12.
Ferrari’s top three finish in Qualifying put them in the position to potentially overtake Mercedes in the Constructor’s Championship while the Mercedes drivers fell short behind them. With regards to the Championship, in the post-race interviews with the podium finishers, Lewis Hamilton made a cheeky comment about him and potentially battling Lando Norris:
“I definitely want to be racy tomorrow. I don’t have anything to lose, but he does. We’ll be quite aggressive, I’m pretty sure – and hopefully we’ll be close enough to put up a good fight.
“It’s been a long time since I’ve been up here [in the post-qualifying press conference], so it feels fresh.”
Max Verstappen also didn’t have the best qualifying session, finishing in P5. With his gap to Lando Norris and Oscar Piastri shrinking, his position would not have been where he wanted to be.
Q3 saw the appearance of rookies Kimi Antonelli, Isack Hadjar and Oliver Bearman, putting in the work and securing P6, P8 and P9 after Sainz’s penalty. Ollie Bearman finds himself in the top ten again after a very successful race weekend last week for Haas, putting them in a good position to get more points towards the Constructors’ Championship. Kimi Antonelli continues to perform well in Mercedes in his first year in Formula 1, and Isack Hadjar also highlights his skills being in one of the less dominant cars on the track. With the gaps in the Driver’s Championship ever closing, the Mexican Grand Prix called for some exciting racing, with both Oscar Piastri and Max Verstappen desperately looking to make up positions.
The Autódromo Hermanos Rodríguez track saw chaos going into the first corner. Lando Norris got a good start off the line, alongside both the Ferraris and Max Verstappen, with all four of them going into the first corner side-by-side. Verstappen flew off the track, along with the Ferraris in multiple different turns of the first lap, joining the track again and gaining an advantage before giving the places back.
Hamilton went off the track, driving into the runoff track before cutting through the grass to get back onto the track. The FIA deemed his act as Hamilton leaving the track and gaining an advantage despite giving the place back to Max Verstappen, and was slapped with a hefty ten-second time penalty. Team Principal Fred Vasseur described the penalty as “a bit harsh”, ruining their chances at a podium finish for both drivers.
Through the chaos, some drivers capitalise, and some fall behind. Ollie Bearman takes advantage of the crazy first few laps, finding himself in P4 for the majority of the race with the possibility of a podium finish due to Hamilton’s penalty. Haas do an amazing job with their pitstop strategy and times, both drivers finishing in the top 10, P4 for the young Rookie, who’s best finish was P6, back when he replaced Carlos Sainz in the 2024 season due to his appendicitis at Ferrari, and Ocon in P9.
Piastri had a less fortunate start, dropping down to P9 in the first laps of the race. However, he did make up positions, overtaking Yuki Tsunoda on track and capitalising on gaining positions on Antonelli and Hamilton during pitstops, finishing the race on the tail of Ollie Bearman, unfortunately a P5 finish not holding off Lando Norris overtaking him in the Drivers’ Championship. He also had a run-in with an angry George Russel, who, after being told to manage his rear tires, complained to his race engineer:
“I’ve got a f****** car in my a**! Ok?! A car much quicker than ours! I’m trying to hold position. I’ve got much more pace than Kimi here, and we can fight for a podium. I’m happy to give the position back if I don’t achieve it.”
Mercedes did undertake a swap under huge amounts of pressure from Oscar Piastri, managing to hold off the Australian for a while longer before overtaking Russel, hunting down the young British driver of Ollie Bearman.
The race came to a head in the final three laps of the race. Max Verstappen gained on Leclerc from a twenty second deficit, as well as Oscar Piastri catching Ollie Bearman down to just 1.1 seconds behind the Haas driver. With both Leclerc and Bearman’s tires on their last legs, the pair battled to stay in front of the Championship contenders, the battle going to the wire. However, just when things were heating up, Carlos Sainz car goes up in smoke as he puts the car into the side of the barrier, trying to tuck the car behind it, initiating what was initially a controversial Virtual Safety Car decision from the FIA. They still, however, had just half a lap left to race, which was just not enough time for Verstappen and Piastri to get past the cars ahead, both drivers finishing in P3 and P5.
In a post-race interview, Charles Leclerc was asked about the relief he felt with the Virtual Safety car, to which he laughed and smiled, saying:
“I was quite happy with the safety car at the end. My tires were completely gone, and I could see Max was coming back on the softer tyre, so it was tough. But I think the safety car saved me at the end.”
With Leclerc on the podium and Hamilton still picking up points, Ferrari once again finds themselves second in the Constructors’ Championship by just one point separating the team after a lesser performance from the Mercedes duo.
The Drivers’ Championship battle continues to be a hot topic of discussion, Lando Norris now leading the Championship by just one point, another of the small margins occurring over the weekend. While Piastri showed a dominating force in the first half of the season, he has just fallen short in the second half, these tracks not being his best ones for his performances. With Max Verstappen just thirty-six points behind Lando Norris, the Drivers’ Championship is still anyone’s game.
With questions about consistency around the McLaren drivers and Verstappen very much in contention for his fifth world championship, we take a break for two weeks, returning in the first week of November for the Sao Paulo Grand Prix, at the Autódromo José Carlos Pace circuit.
Comments