The fierce ongoing battle between Max Verstappen and Lando Norris captured all the attention at the second Formula 1 race in a row, with Norris exclaiming over his team radio in Mexico City, “This guy is dangerous.”
Verstappen was handed two separate 10-second penalties early in the race, one for forcing Norris off the track on turn four, and the other for leaving the track and gaining an advantage just four corners later.
Max Verstappen was penalised twice early in the Mexican grand prix.Credit: Getty Images
While the stewards were examining the incidents, Norris fumed over his McLaren team radio.
But he would have the last laugh in the one-stop, 71-lap race on the highest-altitude track on the F1 calendar at the Autódromo Hermanos Rodríguez.
Verstappen was forced to serve his penalties consecutively when he stopped for fresh rubber at the end of lap 26, coming out in a distant 15th before recovering to finish sixth after a blistering start from the front row of the grid.
But just as they did in the previous race at the Circuit of the Americas in Texas, the Ferrari duo of Carlos Sainz jnr and Charles Leclerc took full advantage of the chaos around them to storm away.
Sainz took the win from a fast-finishing Norris, while a fading Leclerc still finished third after a hair-raising moment late on the final corner.
It was only the lightning-fast reflexes of a Formula 1 driver that saved him from hitting the wall at speed.
Norris, who set the fastest pace of the grand prix late, ate into Verstappen’s lead in the driver standings, but with just four rounds left in the championship, the Red Bull star has one hand on his fourth-straight title.
Still, it was a dirty day for his team in Mexico, with out-of-form local hope Sergio Perez slugged a penalty for starting the race outside the boundaries of his grid box and finishing a distant 16th, well off the pace.
After a disastrous end to his qualifying, Australian star Oscar Piastri started 17th on the grid and had a frustrating opening to the race on his medium tyres as he struggled to overtake the backmarkers around him.
But as the race progressed, his pace improved, and he clinched a series of telling overtakes under braking – ultimately finishing eighth after pitting late on lap 39.
The action-packed day of racing started with controversy with an incident involving Pierre Gasly, Alex Albon, and Yuki Tsunoda – taking the latter two out of the race and bunching up the rest of the field behind the safety car until the end of lap six.
More to come
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