A perfect weekend for one title contender, difficult ones for his two rivals. Lando Norris was in supreme form throughout the Mexico City Grand Prix weekend, leading from pole to flag to take his sixth victory of the season by the margin of half a minute over Charles Leclerc‘s Ferrari. Red Bull was unable to place Max Verstappen‘s car in anything like the sweet spot it has enjoyed since Monza and it was a brilliant combined team-driver performance for him just to finish third. Oscar Piastri lost the lead of the championship to McLaren team-mate Norris after a second consecutive weekend of struggling to maximise the car in conditions of low grip.
Norris didn’t get to drive his car until the second practice session. It had been handled by Pato O’Ward in FP1, but as soon as Lando tried it, he felt good. There was no getting up to speed; he was at speed. The car was giving him all the messages he needed and when it does that his confidence soars. “It never felt like that in Singapore, for example,” he said, “where I was struggling to get a feel for the front end.” He was by far the quickest in the long runs on Friday, with a handy 0.5sec over Piastri, who just could not gel with the need to allow the car to slide in order to be quick.
Verstappen had done the fastest single lap on Friday, but with the car like that, it had degraded its rear tyres horribly quickly in the long runs. There was no way it could be raced like that and a significant set-up change was made overnight to give the rear tyres an easier time. This meant sacrificing the single-lap pace, and it was all Verstappen could do to put it fifth on the grid, 0.5sec adrift of Norris’ pole, but a couple of places ahead of Piastri.
