Fernando Alonso had a nightmare first lap in Mexico through no fault of his own. Not only did two cars which were behind him leave the track at Turn 1 to emerge ahead of him, but the run-on consequences put him in all the wrong places through the lap.
The concertina effect created in the tightly-bunched traffic by the higher speeds of cars rejoining the track from the Turn 1-2-3 grass run-off than those which had taken the corners in the conventional way just added to the mess.
Go in-car with Alonso and you will see he makes a good start from his 14th place grid position, immediately out-accelerating Nico Hülkenberg‘s Sauber. He has a grandstand view then of Esteban Ocon and Carlos Sainz dicing furiously up the straight, Ocon weaving to check Sainz’s better momentum. This slows Sainz on the approach to Turn 1, enabling Alonso to slice down his inside and to be side-by-side there with Ocon.
The Haas driver then pulls two ruthless moves, first chopping across Alonso’s bows (with slight contact right-rear onto Alonso’s front-left, forcing Alonso to back off), then immediately swerving sharp left to prevent Sainz coming around his outside. This forces Sainz to jink hard left onto the grass in avoidance, which takes the Williams into the path of Liam Lawson, damaging the Racing Bulls’ front wing. Sainz and Lawson – both of whom Alonso was ahead of into Turn 1 – rejoin from the Turn 1-2-3 sequence several cars ahead of him.
Drivers like Alonso were critical of the stewards’ inaction after the start in Mexico
Getty Images
As they then rush up to Turn 4, Alonso’s momentum is checked by the concertina of traffic ahead on the inside – allowing his protégé Gabriel Bortoleto to scythe around his outside into the turn. Alonso watches as the Sauber driver immediately puts a move down the inside of Lawson into Turn 6. Lawson, with his damaged wing, is gripless and holding up Alonso badly through the esses. Through the slow Turn 12 into the stadium, Lawson understeers over the kerb and gets crossed up, forcing Alonso to back off in avoidance – and this loss of momentum allows Pierre Gasly to pass Alonso around the outside!
Everything had conspired to put Alonso in all the wrong places on track. He’s normally masterful in these situations, but sometimes external events make you the hapless victim on the first lap and there is an accumulating penalty. It can happen like that.
“We were aggressive into Turn 1,” he told the cameras afterwards, “and everything was looking good. But I think a couple of cars went just straight in Turn 2 and 3 and then they rejoined like three or four cars in front of me. So it’s a little bit unfair, I would say. It’s the second time in a row that on the first lap in the first corner, the FIA is looking to the other side. So, lesson learned.”
This was all happening further down the field than the headline Turn 1 run-off incidents of Max Verstappen and Charles Leclerc. Max had at least given the places back he’d gained and merged back from second into fourth place. Leclerc gave up one of them – the race lead to Lando Norris – but not the other, the second place his team-mate Lewis Hamilton had taken from him into Turn 1.
The later double incident between Verstappen and Hamilton into Turns 1 and 4 just added further controversy to the whole ‘gaining an advantage/track limits’ conversation.
“People may not like it, but they are the regulations,” said Verstappen afterwards, in reference to whether he gave Hamilton racing room in the lap 6 Turn 4 incident. “The regulations are not quite right, I think, but that’s what we are racing to.”
The driving standards guidelines say the overtaking driver on the outside, if he is to be entitled to racing room on the exit, must get their front axle ahead of that of the other car’s – at the apex (our italics).
Verstappen followed the rules while Hamilton didn’t and got penalised
Red Bull
Verstappen had taken to the run-off at Turn 2 after being squeezed by Hamilton and not given the place back because he was clearly ahead into Turn 1 and did not have racing room on the exit of 2.
This is complicated by the fact that Turns 1-2 are just an interconnected single S-bend. The guidelines say that in an S-bend, “priority will be given to the first corner element”. So although Verstappen was clearly ahead into T1 – his front axle was well ahead of Hamilton’s – it wasn’t really feasible for Hamilton alongside to give racing room through T2. Before the guidelines, that would have just meant Verstappen would have to back off and concede the corner, regardless of having been ahead at the T1 apex. But now, as the regulations attempt to encompass dynamic racing situations, there was a regulation justification for Verstappen to simply miss out Turn 2, as he was ahead in T1 (making Hamilton the driver attempting an overtake into T2) and hadn’t been given racing room by the car attempting the overtake into Turn 2.
Verstappen rejoined ahead, but with the loss of momentum, he was vulnerable as they approached Turn 4 and Hamilton moved for the outside approach as Verstappen defended the inside. Verstappen, realising that Hamilton had the momentum to get his axle ahead by the apex, instead held him out wide on the approach so that he couldn’t get side-by-side early enough to make the apex. That’s when Hamilton locked up – and took to the escape route across the grass and rejoined ahead.
The route Hamilton took to rejoin was not as instructed in the race director’s notes, and although the stewards accepted he was going too fast to have taken the prescribed route, he was still, under the regulations, required to hand the place back to Verstappen, which he did not do. Hamilton was just racing the old way – Verstappen had cut Turn 2 and got ahead, now Hamilton was cutting Turn 4 and emerging ahead. They kind of cancelled each other out. But the guidelines are quite specific. Verstappen met the letter of the law; Hamilton did not.
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That said, Hamilton could feel very hard done by the fact that no action was taken by either the stewards or the team for Leclerc having passed him off track on the first lap. Without that, the Verstappen lap 6 incidents wouldn’t have happened. It all went back to those opening few seconds, just as with Alonso’s accumulating deficit.
George Russell, who would have been the first to benefit if Verstappen had not made Turn 1, was unhappy about the situation. “I don’t understand how three drivers can cut the first corner and just continue in the position they entered. It’s like allowing you to risk everything, but you just have a get-out-of-jail-free card if you get it wrong. If there was gravel, no one would be there. We’ve seen it almost every year we’ve been here. I think it was Carlos [Sainz] last year, Charles the year before, Lewis 10 years ago. It’s like lawnmower racing.”
But it was Russell who initiated the changes to the driving standards guidelines last year to what we currently have. For all the right reasons, but with predictable consequences. Regulations begat regulations. They need to be stripped back, not added to.
