An exciting start and a sparkling first segment, then a boring train ride: in short, this is how the Mexican Grand Prix, won by Carlos Sainz, presented itself.
Max Verstappen had a great start and took the lead, ahead of Carlos Sainz and Lando Norris. However, the Dutch driver could not enjoy his position for long, as the safety car came out due to Yuki Tsunoda's bad accident. Meanwhile, Sergio Perez also had a "huge" start, the Mexican slowly becoming unable to find his position on the starting grid. Thus, although he had gained several positions, the Red Bull driver quickly lost them due to a penalty. After five laps, the race could resume, and Sainz changed pace and regained the first position from Verstappen. The Red Bull Racing lead driver also did not have a good race, as he got involved in a battle with Lando Norris and committed infringements against the British driver, which also led to a serious penalty.
Meanwhile, the Mercedes have been challenging each other, and Fernando Alonso was forced to retire from his anniversary race due to a technical failure.
At that point, Sainz, Leclerc, Verstappen were in order, but the latter driver received a 20 (!!) second penalty, which meant that Red Bull had withdrawn from the fight for the constructors' championship. When the first pit stops took place, the intensity of the race decreased. The leading group stabilized, and from then on we only saw a train race. Scuderia Ferrari, Lando Norris, Mercedes, that was the pattern, and by now we were on lap 51, but even in the last stint there was only one significant change of position.
Carlos Sainz took an easy win, but behind him Lando Norris closed in, overtaking Charles Leclerc, who could console himself with a point for the fastest lap. Let's just say it wasn't the best edition of the Mexican Grand Prix ever...
