That’s all from me and the Mexico Grand Prix, thanks for reading. I will leave you with our race report:
And Richard Williams’ column on Lewis Hamilton:
Here are some quotes from Lewis …
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“Hamilton has had troubles?” emails Scott McLeod. “I think being rammed from behind and suffering a puncture and still finishing an F1 race is hardly a bad day, Verstappen has had no pressure so has coasted the race and is hailed a great what?” I don’t think I was being particularly harsh to say Hamilton had troubles all day, albeit not necessarily of his own making. Verstappen was certainly driver of the day in my book, however, if only for that brilliantly audacious start. That’s his third career grand prix victory, his second in four races, and there will be plenty more to come.
Here’s our initial race report from a dramatic Mexico Grand Prix:
Hamilton speaks! “Thank you to everyone who came out to support. The Mexican fans are the best around the world. I did everything I could, I had a good start, I don’t know what happened but I gave [Vettel] plenty of room. Mercedes have been incredible over the past five years. It doesn’t feel real. I never gave up. I kept going right to the end, I’m grateful for today and I just want to lift it up for my family, for God and for my team.”
He’s done it! 🏆🏆🏆🏆
— Formula 1 (@F1) October 29, 2017
Congratulations @LewisHamilton, FOUR-time world champion!#MexicoGP 🇲🇽 #F1 pic.twitter.com/drd4GexvhD
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Hamilton thanks his team for all their hard work over radio, and then gets a message from his pal Neymar in his ear, what a treat. He spins some celebratory donuts before jumping out and waving a Union Jack.
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Hamilton finished ninth but Vettel could only get as high as fourth after their early collision and the Briton now has an unassailable lead going into the final two races. Toto Wolff tells Hamilton on radio: “Not the race we wanted but who cares Lewis – four-time world champion!”
Max Verstappen wins the Mexico Grand Prix! Lewis Hamilton wins the 2017 world title!
Verstappen crosses the line with a fist pump while behind him Hamilton continues to chase one more place, his racing instinct as strong as ever, but he doesn’t make it and he doesn’t need it. He puts two hands to that famous yellow helmet. Lewis Hamilton is a four-time world champion.
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Lap 70/71 Verstappen leads the way into the final lap. He has been the star of the show and Hamilton has had troubles all day, but he’s going to claim the world title all the same.
Lap 69/71 Verstappen fizzes out the fastest lap of the race at the front. Behind there’s a brilliant duel for ninth place as Hamilton and Alonso go side by side through the S-bends and their cars nudge together, sending a little piece of Mercedes flying into the air. Hamilton brakes late and holds his nerve around the outside with the help of DRS to finally make the move stick.
Lap 68/71 Hamilton has another look down the inside of Alonso with some DRS to his aid, but no luck.
Lap 67/71 Alonso tries to hold off Hamilton who is sniffing for P9 and the McLaren driver does well to block his former team-mate’s route through.
Lap 64/71 Verstappen is closing in on his second win in four race weekends after his Malaysia success. Bottas will claim second, surely, and that will confirm Hamilton’s world title. He is still 10th, currently chasing Alonso, but it matters not.
Lap 62/71 Another Renault retires – Carlos Sainz pulls into the pits. That’s two of their team cars and four of their powered cars out of the Mexico Grand Prix.
Lap 60/71 Vettel passes Ocon down the inside and now Raikkonen is likely to soon get a message to move over for his team-mate – though right now there is 20 seconds between them.
Lap 59/71 The cameras switch to Marcus Ericsson walking away from his car which is very much alight. That’s the fourth retirement of the race.
Lap 57/71 Hamilton pops open the rear wing with DRS and chases after Massa, searching to break into the points. He asks over radio if it is possible Vettel could finish second. “Negative,” comes the reply. He powers past Massa and is set to pick up at least a point.
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Lap 55/71 Verstappen, by the way, has grown his lead to more than 17 seconds from Bottas, who is 26 seconds clear of Ocon. Fair to say it’s not been a classic at the nose of the race but that is in large part down to the brilliance of Verstappen on the opening few corners. Vettel passes Stroll to grab fifth and heads towards Ocon.
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Lap 53/71 Pérez has decided he has nothing to lose, and pits to put on the ultrasoft tyres and have a chase of Vettel. Hamilton meanwhile remains 12th and is heading towards a fourth world title in underwhelming fashion.
Lap 51/71 Vettel has been driving hard to close the gap to Pérez and has finally got close enough to gain some DRS assistance – and he takes that momentum through the S-bends to pass the Force India! He’s up to sixth and has his sights set on Lance Stroll’s Williams next.
After 50 laps
1 Verstappen
2 Bottas
3 Raikkonen
4 Ocon
5 Stroll
6 Pérez
7 Vettel
8 Magnussen
9 Alonso
10 Massa
12 Hamilton
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Lap 48/71 Hamilton is told he is forecast for an eighth-place finish to gain some points which he probably won’t need – Vettel is still in seventh although he is closing in on Perez’s rear wing.
@lawrenceostlere Predicted finish -- Verstappen wipes out attempting to lap Vettel.
— Boo Dure 🗯️⚽👨👦 (@duresport) October 29, 2017
Lap 46/71 A bit of a lull, not a whole lot is happening out there right now. Voom.
Lap 43/71 Vettel is still 10 seconds behind sixth-placed Pérez, although he is slowly chipping away. His hopes of a top-two finish are looking extremely slim. Hamilton glides around Gasly to move up to 13th.
Lap 42/71 Max Verstappen is told to take it easy by Red Bull on radio, but he doesn’t. “That was the same as your last lap, Max,” he’s told. “I’m so sorry,” he laughs.
Lap 40/71 Hamilton is getting a little grouchy on team radio. Up front, Max Verstappen is putting the hammer down, slinging his Red Bull around this circuit and moving more than 11 seconds clear of his nearest rival, Bottas. He won’t have any say this year but this is surely a world champion of the future.
Lap 38/71 Vettel cruises by Magnussen who politely lets the Ferrari through without resistance. Five more to get past, although one of those is his team-mate who is likely to be equally accommodating.
Lap 37/71 Hamilton passes Romain Grosjean to move up to 15th place. It doesn’t matter hugely to his title hopes – Vettel has to finish in the top two to deny the Mercedes driver today and that is looking a tricky task right now. Verstappen and Bottas are a long way clear of the rest, 24 seconds in fact from Raikkonen in third.
Lap 34/71 Verstappen comes in under a brief period of Virtual Safety Car as Brendon Hartley retires from the race. Vettel comes in too and puts on the ultrasoft tyres, a bold move and he will try to go to the end on the quicker set of tyres.
Lap 32/71 Hamilton has his second scalp of this revival challenge, Pascal Wehrlein, and he’s up to 16th. Vettel’s recovery from that dramatic start has been far more successful, now up to eighth and right in amongst it. Remember he needs to finish in the top two so Hamilton’s team-mate Bottas could yet play a key role in sealing the title if he later needs to hold off the Ferrari’s charge.
Lap 31/71 Pérez storms down the inside of Magnussen and the home crowd cheer.
Lap 29/71 As we approach the mid-section of this race and the point when the leaders will pit, Verstappen continues to head the pack with an eight-second advantage from Bottas, who is 20 seconds clear of Raikkonen in third.
Lap 28/71 Hamilton continues to struggle at the back of the pack, reporting that he “can’t get near another car”, but finally he passes Sainz and moves up to 17th place. There is clearly something wrong with his Mercedes but I’m sure he and his team are desperate to keep his car out on the track.
Lap 26/71 Yellow flags as Nico Hulkenberg’s engine conks out. His race is over. He is told to urgently get out of his car. “It is not safe,” he is told rather terrifyingly over team radio. He jumps out successfully.
Lap 23/71 Verstappen remains around five seconds clear of Bottas at the front. Pirelli have said that a one-stop strategy – with a visit to the pits at around 30-34 laps – would be optimum today for those at the front, so it could be a little while before anything changes at the sharp end of this race. Vettel swoops past Kiwi driver Brendon Hartley and up to 12th.
Lap 22/71 This isn’t much fun for Hamilton, who has just been lapped by Max Verstappen and will soon be passed by his team-mate Valtteri Bottas. “It’s crazy to be fighting for this position,” says a miffed championship leader.
Lap 20/71 Pérez comes in to pit and drops back to eighth. Hulkenberg does likewise and sneaks out just in front of the Mexican driver. That’s pushed Ocon to box too.
After 20 laps
1 Verstappen
2 Bottas
3 Ocon
4 Hulkenberg
5 Pérez
6 Raikkonen
7 Stroll
8 Magnussen
9 Ericsson
10 Vandoorne
13 Vettel
19 Hamilton
Lap 18/71 Vettel is up to 13th, smoothly passing Grosjean, and starting to head into the points. He needs to finish in the top two to keep this title battle alive.
Lap 15/71 Valtteri Bottas screams around the Autódromo Hermanos Rodríguez to set a new fastest lap of the race. He remains around five seconds back from the leader, Max Verstappen. An interesting thought from Brand King on email: “Given his season is unravelling at Red Bull, and the likelihood Verstappen will be unofficial number one, do you think we’ll see Ricciardo at Ferrari next season? It might be the closest Scuderia get to an Italian driver.”
Lap 13/71 Vettel is fighting hard and in doing so slides off the track as he rounds Massa. He might be forced to hand that position back but hasn’t made an effort to do so as yet. He sounds off on team radio and is told to stay focused. “I am focused, don’t worry,” comes the response.
Lap 11/71 Verstappen sets a new fastest lap and has a five-second lead. With Ricciardo out Hamilton is 19th, around four seconds back from Sainz in 18th, while Vettel is up to 16th. Meanwhile in the middle of the pack Alonso and Grosjean collide and car parts fly. Alonso’s McLaren may need to come in for some TLC. Confirmation that the stewards will not be investigating the incidents between the front trio at the start, and rightly so.
Lap 9/21 Verstappen has a four-second lead over Bottas in second and a fantastic chance to win this grand prix now. “Simply simply lovely,” he says on radio of that blistering start.
Lap 7/71 A reminder that Hamilton needs a top five finish to seal the world title. “Did he hit me deliberately?” asks Hamilton over radio. “Not sure, Lewis,” comes the reply. It certainly didn’t look like it from here.
Lap 5/20 Replays show there were actually two moments of contact, firstly Vettel’s front wing on Verstappen, secondly Vettel’s front wing with Hamilton. Chunks of Ferrari were left by the side of the track. Now Ricciardo comes into the pits, and his race is over – he changed his engine coming into this race but it hasn’t solved his issues.
Lap 3/71 Looking back, that was all about Max Verstappen’s feisty approach into the opening two corners. He managed to simultaneously defend against Hamilton and attack Vettel, grab the race lead, and in doing so force the two world champions into a battle which has left them both having to come from the back of the pack. Vettel is 18th, 24 seconds ahead of Hamilton in 20th.
Lap 1/71 Vettel comes in to the pits for a nose change and Hamilton is in soon afterwards, rejoining the race in 20th. Verstappen leads the Mexico Grand Prix with Bottas second and Ocon third. What a start that was.
Lights out!
Verstappen holds off Hamilton and overtakes Vettel into the first corner! Vettel and Hamilton go wheel to wheel and there’s contact – the Mercedes has a puncture. Hamilton trundles slowly round the track and he desperately needs to get back to the pit lane to keep his race going.
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Sebastian Vettel leads the convoy back on to the grid. Here we go...
There are 115,000 fans packed around the Autódromo Hermanos Rodríguez, and 30,000 of those are gathered around the baseball stadium section where the fearsome Peraltada corner used to lurk. The formation lap is about to get under way.
In a final bit of questioning before he steps into his Mercedes, Valtteri Bottas promises he is allowed to race freely against his team-mate Lewis Hamilton, who starts one spot ahead of him, but surely he is under orders to help seal the championship today.
The grid
After a bit of quick maths due to the various grid penalties in Mexico this weekend, most notably Ricciardo’s 20-place penalty for an engine change which confusingly only nudges him back eight or nine places, this is the lineup we should be looking at:
1 Sebastian Vettel (Ferrari) 2 Max Verstappen (Red Bull)
3 Lewis Hamilton (Mercedes) 4 Valtteri Bottas (Mercedes)
5 Kimi Raikkonen (Ferrari) 6 Esteban Ocon (Force India)
7 Nico Hulkenberg (Renault) 8 Carlos Sainz Jnr (Renault)
9 Sergio Pérez (Force India) 10 Felipe Massa (Williams)
11 Lance Stroll (Williams) 12 Marcus Ericsson (Sauber)
13 Pascal Wehrlein (Sauber) 14 Kevin Magnussen (Haas)
15 Romain Grosjean (Haas) 16 Daniel Ricciardo (Red Bull)
17 Brendon Hartley (Toro Rosso) 18 Fernando Alonso (McLaren)
19 Stoffel Vandoorne (McLaren) 20 Pierre Gasly (Toro Rosso)
Martin Brundle’s gridwalk finishes with the thoughts of sprint legend Michael Johnson, who says “every F1 race is like an Olympics”. Is it, though? A minute’s silence follows to mark the victims of last month’s earthquake in Mexico, before the national anthem.
“I’d love to see Lewis win the title today - he’s the man! says Olympic sprinting legend Michael Johnson - great to have you here 👍 pic.twitter.com/EoAiLEylEy
— Formula 1 (@F1) October 29, 2017
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Here’s Max Verstappen: “I think we all learned [from the crash with Vettel at the start in Singapore]. It’s a bit wider, longer, and I think Seb is not that worried because it was raining then. I’ve been trying to show [my motivation] in qualifying.”
Fernando Alonso: “It will be fun race, a lot of action, hopefully we take the opportunities.”
And finally Kimi Raikkonen: [Unintelligible muttering].
“This is obviously Lewis’ to lose,” emails Guy Hornsby, “and for once it’s a been a season where his Mercedes has been pushed to the limit by other teams and he’s had to earn every point. He’ll finally surpass Jackie Stewart, and it’ll be the sweetest of all championships for that. As a Brit l find it staggering Lewis isn’t seen as a true legend on these shores. In America he’d be worshipped, but there’s a certain British stuffiness that means he’s seen as too brash, or too aloof, too many tattoos, and inside the sport as not being focused enough, and partying, but this year should put that all too rest. We’re lucky to have him, he’s brilliant and an utterly modern champion, and like Andy Murray - for opposite reasons - in years from now many will see how foolish and snobby they were.”
Mercedes’ Niki Lauda speaks: “Lewis wants to win this race. [I told him] don’t drive any different any normal. Try to win and then the championship comes anyway.”
Martin Brundle is on the grid hunting down drivers...
I wrote about the Autódromo Hermanos Rodríguez a while back, specifically the fearsome Peraltada corner which for better or worse has since been chopped in half, specifically one overtaking manoeuvre around Peraltada by Nigel Mansell in 1990:
Formula One is making its 19th visit to the Autódromo Hermanos Rodríguez in the east of Mexico City, and its third since a 22-year stretch away. Here’s all you need to know about one of the calendar’s most demanding tracks on the brakes:
Preamble
Hello and welcome to coverage of the Mexico Grand Prix, in which Lewis Hamilton needs to finish fifth or better to claim the 2017 drivers’ championship crown. Given he has finished outside the top five only once all season and is starting third on the grid, it is fair to assume Mercedes have banners and balloons at the ready.
It might have been a whole lot more tense, of course, but for Sebastian Vettel’s sticky patch over three races in Asia in which he registered two retirements and a fourth place, losing 56 points to Hamilton and all but conceding the title. Vettel begins on pole in Mexico, ahead of Red Bull’s Max Verstappen, and the German must have considered the oddity that his best chance here is to offer Hamilton a sight of victory and hope greed gets the better of him. Hamilton understandably wants to clinch glory with a grand prix win but Mercedes will be firmly encouraging a risk-averse strategy.
Hamilton can join an elite band of drivers to have won four or more drivers’ championships: Vettel (four back-to-back titles between 2010 and 2013), Alain Prost (four titles between 1985 and 1993), Juan Manuel Fangio (five titles between 1951 and 1957) and Michael Schumacher (seven titles between 1994 and 2004). The 32-year-old will surpass Jackie Stewart’s three crowns to be the most successful British driver ever, and although he may be no closer to winning sports personality of the year he will surely confirm his name in the eyes of racing fans as one of F1’s greatest – with time on his side to achieve even more.
Lights out 7pm GMT, 1pm local time
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