Mexican Grand Prix conclusions: Sergio Perez’s Day of the Dead nightmare

Red Bull driver Max Verstappen set a new F1 record by claiming his 16th victory of the 2023 season at the Mexican Grand Prix.

The three-time World Champion dominated after snatching the lead at the start and was joined on the podium by Mercedes driver Lewis Hamilton and Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc.

After a bruising weekend for Sergio Perez at his home race, here are our conclusions from Mexico…

Max Verstappen’s intensity is breathtaking

Officially, the last non-championship F1 race was held 40 years ago.

But in reality, the closing weeks of almost every season – when the Drivers’ and Constructors’ titles have long been signed, sealed and delivered – contain a handful of grands prix that don’t particularly matter in the grand scheme of things.

It is hard for the viewer to retain interest when the main prizes have already been allocated and, every so often, the same is true for the drivers too.

Recall, for instance, how Hamilton effectively stopped trying – present in body but not in spirit – after securing his third title in 2015, letting the final three races of that season go to Nico Rosberg and unwittingly gifting his Mercedes team-mate a boost of confidence that he would carry into the following year.

Moral of the story? When your foot is on your opponent’s throat, keep pressing. Hard.

Verstappen’s end to last season – winning three of the final four rounds in what was a new experience for him after clinching the title in Japan – signified an instinctive refusal to ease off no matter the circumstances.

And after finishing 2022 with a flourish and a new record for 15 wins in a season, he has gone one better at the first opportunity – and still has the chance to extend it further over the remaining three races.

He was now won 31 races since the beginning of last season and 41 of the last 63 stretching back to the start of his maiden title-winning season in 2021.

And little more than a month after his historic winning streak of 10 came to an end in Singapore, might we already by witnessing the building blocks of another?

If he can win in Brazil, Vegas and Abu Dhabi before 2023 is over, he will start next season requiring just three more victories to equal yet another of his own records.

Over the last three races alone he has been crowned a three-time World Champion (Qatar), claimed his 50th grand prix victory (Austin) and set a new record for the most wins in a season (Mexico), each race bringing a major new milestone. It’s been that kind of season.

An off weekend never is, never has been an option for Verstappen.

F1 has never seen anything like this before, a driver capable of touching the sky with such ease and effortlessness. His intensity is breathtaking.

Sergio Perez is a dead man walking at Red Bull

How fitting that the Mexican Grand Prix falls at the same time of year as the Day of the Dead festival.

Whereas other nations and cultures tend to have a glum attitude towards all things death, this Thursday (November 2) Mexico will unite to remember – to celebrate – all the lost souls.

There were moments over this weekend when it seemed as though the Day of the Dead had come early as Sergio Perez’s season hit an all new low, seemingly putting the final nail in his Red Bull coffin.

Despite a punishing year alongside Verstappen, his confidence draining away with each passing race, there was no evidence this weekend that Perez’s popularity at home has suffered.

Rather than turning their backs on him – as elements of Finland did in the aftermath of Valtteri Bottas’s winless 2018, a long-term sponsor ruthlessly dropping him and unwittingly fuelling his immortal “to whom it may concern” radio retort – the locals remain as supportive of Perez as they ever were.

Still they rose to their feet, cheered and applauded every time he exited the pits and drove by; still they chanted his name even at the end of qualifying when, beaten by Daniel Ricciardo in what already felt like a terminal result for his future prospects, he needed to hear it most.

It was inspirational – touching even – to observe a driver subjected to such intense scrutiny over recent months receive such a hero’s welcome (Perez, after all, is by some margin the most successful Mexican driver in F1 history).

这个问题?

Unlike his previous visits to this circuit as a Red Bull driver, Perez was in no fit state to repay the faith of the fans this weekend.

He hasn’t been for quite some time now, so much so that it felt pointless to even pose the traditional, tiresome pre-Mexico question – will Verstappen help Perez to victory (spoiler: not a chance in hell)? – on this occasion.

After qualifying behind by the very driver who is openly targeting his seat, Red Bull’s attempts to draw attention to the fact that Perez was within two tenths of Verstappen rang hollow.

Then came the start, Perez with the launch of his life but spoiling it with another of those all too familiar misjudgements in battle, suffering his second DNF in four at the race that means so much to him.

And then, perhaps worst of all, came the explanation, Perez justifying his reckless move by indicating that he was bored of merely finishing on the podium here and that he simply had to go for the lead in front of his home crowd – the sure sign of a driver no longer thinking rationally.

Even after that, the fans who chose to remain in the grandstands greeted him with that familiar warmth when he made his way to the pit wall to thank them, paying tribute to another lost soul.

Mexico clearly still believes in Perez, even if the rest of the world – including, surely, senior members of the Red Bull hierarchy – no longer share that faith.

There are no signs of life here anymore and there is every chance that this weekend will mark the beginning of the end – call it the death rattle – of his Red Bull career.

Perez is a dead man walking – and the time has now come for the team to put him out of his misery.

Daniel Ricciardo is now ticking every box for a Red Bull return

Red Bull, it is safe to assume by now, would really quite like to bring Ricciardo back as Verstappen’s team-mate.

But how could they ever justify doing that when he was struggling to establish the upper hand over a driver of Yuki Tsunoda’s calibre? When his first three races back, either side of his broken hand, were so inconclusive?

The first steps of Ricciardo’s return had raised more questions than answers… until now.

This weekend was the first real glimpse of the Daniel of old; the Daniel to whom Red Bull bid farewell to at the end of 2018; the Daniel they recognised in the Silverstone test in the RB19 in July.

A constant fixture in the top 10 throughout practice, slotting himself nicely between Verstappen and Perez on the grid – for the latter’s home race, if you please, having outpaced him in an inferior car all the way through qualifying – had the feel of a hugely symbolic moment in the fight for Red Bull’s affections.

Verstappen and Ricciardo, together again on the second row of the grid. With Perez rendered an afterthought back in fifth, it was a qualifying classification that screamed: “Pick me!”

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For the first time since his final days at Renault three years ago, Ricciardo finally had a car he could work with again in Mexico – further fuelling last week’s suspicion that this is a driver only capable of driving reliable, well-balanced F1 cars with good grip, but who tends to regress to the mean when nudged out of that window.

Ricciardo has always had a special place in Red Bull’s heart – see over the last 12 months how they relished the chance to bring him back as a reserve driver, assisted his rehab with sim sessions, found him a race seat at the first opportunity and loyally stood by him following his injury – but doubts have persisted about whether he is what the team truly need.

现在34,谦卑的创伤his McLaren stint – he would be grateful forevermore for the opportunity to drive a race-winning car again.

不像佩雷斯,远远领先你好mself after a couple of victories at the start of the season and caused unnecessary tension within the team.

If his previous stint at Red Bull is anything to go by, meanwhile, he would most certainly not put Verstappen on the grass at the team’s home track.

Unlike Perez, who did exactly that at the start of the rain-affected sprint race in Austria, an act of war he will live to regret.

Ticking every other box, the only lingering reservation over his suitability for a Red Bull return was his pace and whether he still had the requisite ability to survive alongside Verstappen.

Fourth on the grid, two tenths off pole position, within a tenth of Max, hassling George Russell’s Mercedes all the way to the chequered flag to finish seventh, all in a humble AlphaTauri – a car with just five points finishes all session prior to this weekend – seemed to provide the answer.

As Perez falls deeper into the hole, Ricciardo is rising again. This was the weekend he passed Perez on the way up and his timing could not have been more ideal.

For Christian Horner and co, the temptation give Ricciardo back his old seat is becoming ever harder to resist.

Lando Norris’s first win is becoming a matter of urgency

Lando Norris had been here before, watching his team-mate win a race and then finding himself in the lead of the very next grand prix.

After Sochi 2021 came Austin 2023, Norris daring to dream of a maiden victory having led the first half of the race. Then in his mirrors appeared Verstappen, Lando jumped out of the way and the moment – the chance – was gone.

Second. Again.

In many ways Norris has never had it so good in F1 – he has finished on the podium at six of the last 10 races, equalling his best result on five occasions – yet at the same time have come the first signs that there may be a limit to his potential.

A first win is edging ever closer, it feels, yet so the evidence is slowly building that a World Championship may ultimately be beyond his reach.

In a sport in which the drivers are so evenly matched for talent, temperament is often the greatest differentiator and it is in this area where the lingering weaknesses of Norris – under the first real stress test of his career by Oscar Piastri, a Verstappen clone – have been exposed in 2023.

Norris’shighly emotional response to Piastri’s sprint victory in Qatarrevealed the depth of the pain of his own wait, each passing race weekend without a win gnawing away at him – his confidence, his self-worth – just a little more.

Perhaps it wouldn’t be so hard to take if Piastri – as opposed to Ricciardo, winner at Monza two years ago – was not proving such a serious and sustained threat to Norris’s position as McLaren team leader.

If Piastri has been this impressive, this assured, in his debut season – after sitting out the entirety of last year, remember – how much better will he get in 2024 and beyond?

How much faster, tougher, stronger will he become as he grows in experience and his data bank expands?

It is why Norris’s first Q1 exit since Miami – with another annoying little mistake with major consequences, having measured up well against Verstappen over the long runs in Friday practice – ultimately rendered Mexico just another wasted weekend.

Even as the podiums keep racking up, they all seem to feel a bit like that at the moment as the wait to the win goes on and on. Second and third-place trophies are welcome, of course, but not enough to satisfy him – not what he really needs – anymore.

How his latest tiny error, undoing another weekend in which he had looked dangerous, must have tormented him on Saturday night.

His recovery on race day was impressive, no doubt, yet Sunday merely amounted to righting the wrongs of Saturday – in much the same style as Perez’s various 2023 recovery drives from unnaturally low grid positions – when he really should have been troubling Verstappen at the front.

Claiming that elusive first victory has become a matter of urgency, for the monkey has rarely loomed so large – rarely weighed so heavy – on a racing driver’s back.

The confidence, the validation, the certainty that comes with a breakthrough win is something Norris is utterly crying out for at this pivotal point of his career.

Is it possible that, with a clean and error-free weekend, it could still come his way before the close of 2023? It is potentially crucial to his hopes of containing Piastri into next year.

The longer his wait lasts, however, the more his career momentum slows – maybe even regresses – and the more he is at risk of becoming the Daniel to Piastri’s Max.

And everyone knows how that turned out.

2023 has turned into a solid start to Sgt Fred’s Ferrari era

一个遥远的车队积分榜的第三智慧h only one victory all year, 2023 will not exactly be remembered as a vintage season at Maranello.

今年还可以,第一次在新团队主要cipal Fred Vasseur, prove to be a stable platform for better things to come?

With three races left, there is something to be said for the fact that the only team other than Red Bull to win a race this year is Ferrari.

And with five pole positions on merit – including four at the last six races – the team’s progression from a challenging start to 2023 is clear.

Ferrari’s title ambitions for 2023 were already over this time last year, the moment the previous regime failed to spot the warning signs that their 2022 car concept had limited development potential.

A new design is planned for 2024 and Vasseur has been working in the background on recruitment, frequently expressing his frustration this year about the extended periods of gardening leave in place in F1 contracts.

Slowly but surely, however, this is becoming his team.

The potential for spectacular failure remains ever present, yet there are indications that Ferrari’s trackside processes and procedures have become more logical of late too.

See, for instance, how both Leclerc and Carlos Sainz spent time practicing outlaps – for tyre-preparation purposes – in FP3 on Saturday morning, actively anticipating the golden two-minute window in Q3 when the conditions would swing decisively in Ferrari’s direction and result in a front-row lockout.

The pattern of this season and Ferrari’s lingering tyre-management weakness made it unlikely that they would remain there, Leclerc and Sainz slipping to third and fourth at the chequered flag, but for the first time in a long time the team appear to be on the right track in a range of areas.

More patience will be required, but trust Sgt Fred to get it right eventually.

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