Here is our full text transcript from the 20th round of the 2024 Formula 1 championship, the Mexico GP:
The sun is shining down on the Autodromo Hermanos Rodriguez for the 2024 Mexico City Grand Prix, where there is huge anticipation ahead of the longest run down to Turn One of the year. Carlos Sainz starts on pole position after a stunning Q3 lap and he has championship leader Max Verstappen on the front row for company, with title chaser Lando Norris in third. Don’t rule out Charles Leclerc for being in the mix from fourth, while there are big unknowns at Mercedes, as George Russell and Lewis Hamilton are on the third row.
Towards the back, there is a huge amount of work for Oscar Piastri in 17th and Sergio Perez in 18th after they were knocked out in Q1.
Brundle: Ferrari are fundamentally fast around here
Sky Sports F1’s Martin Brundle on Charles Leclerc and Ferrari ahead of the Mexican GP:
Carlos Sainz ahead of the race:
“I think from the second row of the grid, there’s half a chance he will be leading coming out of the first corner. “The Ferrari is fundamentally fast around here. It’s easy to think they have nothing to lose because it’s about Max vs Lando but Ferrari fancy their chances to win the Constructors’ Championship, so they can’t afford to lose a car.”
You can’t help but feel for Carlos Sainz. Driver of the weekend. More often than not neck and neck with Charles Leclerc all year. But in the peculiar position of knowing he’s leaving a frontrunning team at the end of the season.
“That’s the target, to leave on a high,” today’s polesitter tells Sky Sports F1, with just five races left at Ferrari before he leaves for Williams. “Maximise my chances of getting on that podium, with a win. That’s what I’ve been doing and I want to give it my all in these last few races with the team. It would have been easy to lose a bit of motivation, that fight in me, knowing I’m leaving at the end of the year, but I’ve managed to keep myself in check and I’m ready to take any opportunities. Feeling very comfortable all weekend in the car, I think everything is working really well. Honestly I cannot wait for the race, I think it should be an exciting one, especially that run down to Turn One. Obviously breaking the tow is important, but at the same time it’s very difficult to predict how your rivals are going to start. I’ll look in the mirrors and see where they are!”
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All of the front-runners have new hards and mediums left, but Red Bull have two new mediums – perhaps thinking about the possibility of a Safety Car which could lead to a two-stop race. But it should be a pretty simple race strategy-wise. Medium-Hard is the way to go for the top drivers.
Mediums for most of the grid, including everyone in the top 11. RB’s Liam Lawson in 12th is the first driver on the hards. Valtteri Bottas (15th), Franco Colapinto (16th), Sergio Perez (18th), Zhou Guanyu (19th), Esteban Ocon (pit lane) are all on the hards too. Nobody is on the softs.
Lap 1/71: We are racing in Mexico City and Max Verstappen gets a better start and edges Carlos Sainz wide at Turn One. The Spaniard cuts the corner but gives the place back. Lando Norris remains in third with Charles Leclerc in fourth and Lewis Hamilton has got by George Russell. Yuki Tsunoda crashes! The RB driver got caught up into that corner and spins around, with a wheel coming off! He’s out. He said he’s OK. That’s good to hear. Alex Albon was also hit there… and he’s out of this race too! We have a first-lap Safety Car.
Lap 3/71: The Safety Car is still out there as the marshal sweep away the debris and clear Yuki Tsunoda and Alex Albon’s cars.
Lap 4/71: Amidst the chaos, one driver who managed to gain plenty of places is home hero Sergio Perez. The Red Bull man has risen five places to 13th… BUT race stewards are investigating him for a false start! Fellow Q1 exitee Oscar Piastri remains 17th.
Lap 5/71: So Verstappen leads from Sainz, Norris, Leclerc and Hamilton. These laps under the Safety Car will help the tyres, like we saw in Austin last Sunday, so the drivers can push more and not worry about tyre degradation as much. Perez told his Red Bull team it was a “great start” on team radio – but stewards have just confirmed he has a five-second penalty. It wasn’t for the start itself, but where he lined up on the grid.
Lap 7/71: The Safety Car is in this lap. Max Verstappen will lead the field away. Max Verstappen goes for it before the final couple of corners and gets a nice gap to Carlos Sainz. No overtakes in the top 10 down into Turn One.
Lap 8/71: Sainz stays within one second of Verstappen. And crucially that means Carlos Sainz has DRS on Max Verstappen. Lando Norris is right there too and Charles Leclerc looks like he has pace. We expect a four-way scrap for the win, unless Mercedes show some speed, with Lewis Hamilton in fifth.
Lap 9/71: Carlos Sainz dives down the inside into Turn One and leads the Mexico City Grand Prix! He just about gathers the car up at Turn Two then uses the benefit of also having DRS on the run down to Turn Four to stay ahead of Verstappen.
Lap 10/71: Lando Norris goes for it around the outside of Turn Four but Max Verstappen edges him wide and Norris cuts the corner. Norris tries to let him through at Turn Eight but Verstappen and himself both go off the track and Charles Leclerc overtakes both of them. REMARKABLE.
Lap 12/71: Sergio Perez has dispatched both Aston Martins and is up to 11th. He does though, remember, have a five-second penalty to serve.
Lap 13/71: Wow. Max Verstappen has a 10-second time penalty for “forcing another driver off the track”. That driver was Lando Norris.
Lap 15/71: George Russell swoops around the outside of Lewis Hamilton to take fifth place. Hamilton covered the inside but Russell had enough speed to get by at the first corner.
Lap 16/71: Right, back at the front. It is a Ferrari one-two after the mess of Verstappen and Norris. Sainz leads Leclerc by two seconds, with Verstappen another two seconds behind and Norris 1.5 seconds adrift of the championship leader. The first driver to reach 400 GP weekends in F1 sadly won’t finish it in the car. Fernando Alonso is back in the pits, retiring from the race. Shame.
Wow, quite the battle between Sergio Perez and Liam Lawson – the two men thought to be in the running for the Red Bull seat in 2025! Perez, in the Red Bull, tries to pass Lawson, in the sister team RB car, up the inside of Turn Four and the pair tangle on the exit. It looks like Perez lost a few aero bits off his car. “What is this idiot doing?” says Perez. “Is he ok?”
Lap 20/71: Wow, Max Verstappen has ANOTHER 10-second time penalty. This time it’s for leaving the track and gaining an advantage at Turn Eight. That means his first penalty was in fact for the first incident at Turn Four.
Lap 22/71: Out in front, Carlos Sainz has a 3.2-second lead over Charles Lecelrc with Max Verstappen another four seconds back.
Lap 22/71: Another feisty battle taking place in this race is between Piastri and Colapinto, with the Argentine forcing the McLaren the long way around the first chicane. Piastri makes the move stick up into Turn Four. Sergio Perez, meanwhile, has pitted – with plenty of damage to his sidepods. He’s in and out, so just an early stop.
Lap 24/71: Lando Norris is back within one second of Max Verstappen. Will he be brave enough to make a move on the track? Lap 25/71: We just heard George Russell say “wow” when told of Verstappen’s penalty – and another driver that could benefit is Oscar Piastri. His comeback continues, now running 11th after overtaking Lance Stroll.
Lap 26/71: Lando Norris is right there but chooses to not go for a lunge into Turn One on Max Verstappen. He knows Verstappen is happy to be very aggressive this afternoon.
Lap 27/71: Max Verstappen comes into the pit lane and serves his 20-second time penalty. A Red Bull mechanic puts a fan over the car to try and cool it. Verstappen comes back out down in 15th place…
Lap 27/71: Lando Norris now has clean air but is six seconds behind Charles Leclerc. Let’s see what pace Norris has got and whether he can do anything about the Ferraris.
Lap 29/71: Lewis Hamilton is the latest driver to pit – a 3.1s stop from Mercedes. He comes out behind Colapinto, in 10th. Carlos Sainz is clearly in a league of his own right now, by far the fastest driver in the field and he leads by seven seconds over team-mate Charles Leclerc.
Lap 30/71: Max Verstappen breezes past Esteban Ocon and is into 11th place. Many drivers ahead of him are yet to stop, so he will soon be back into the points.
Lap 31/71: Lando Norris now comes in, it’s a quick stop from McLaren and he’s out into plenty of free air, losing only one position to Russell in the process. Will Ferrari respond?
Lap 32/71: No surprise there, Ferrari respond straight away after Norris and Leclerc pits. He’s around 4s ahead of the McLaren on exit.
Lap 33/71: Carlos Sainz stops and is now on the hard tyres. He has a nine-second lead over Charles Leclerc, who is five seconds in front of Lando Norris.
Lap 36/71: An unfair fight there as a fresh-tyred Max Verstappen encountered Franco Colapinto’s Williams, yet to stop. Verstappen surges past well before Turn One, and he’s up to eighth. A long way behind his top-five rivals, though.
Lap 37/71: We are into the second half of the Mexico City Grand Prix. Carlos Sainz leads by eight seconds from Charles Leclerc, with Lando Norris another five seconds back. They are all just managing things at the moment.
Lap 39/71: Max Verstappen gets past another one of those who haven’t stopped yet, Liam Lawson, on the main straight for seventh place. He does, though, report on team radio that his tyres aren’t working. With 32 laps still to go, that won’t be music to Red Bull’s ears.
Lap 42/71: No issues for Liam Lawson as he breezes past Sergio Perez on the home straight to take 16th place. Sergio Perez is last of the drivers still in the race but carrying damage after his clash with Lawson earlier.
Lap 45/71: Carlos Sainz is 6.5 seconds ahead of Charles Leclerc, who has been a couple tenths quicker in the last few laps. Lando Norris is still five seconds behind Leclerc.
Lap 46/71: There are sprinkles of rain around the track, but nothing significant yet.
Lap 48/71: Max Verstappen’s difficult race continues – and at the moment he’s losing chunks of time to all of the top five, he’s 11s behind Hamilton in fifth. He’ll be looking in his mirrors before long, particularly with Piastri’s charge. He now runs ninth after Colapinto finally pits.
Lap 51/71: George Russell slightly covers the inside into Turn One as Lewis Hamilton is right there now. This could be a great battle between the Mercedes pair.
Lap 53/71: Lando Norris is less than four seconds behind Charles Leclerc in the fight for second. He’s slowly catching.
Lap 54/71: Lewis Hamilton jinks to the right approaching Turn One but is not close enough to make a move on George Russell. Hamilton will soon begin to get frustrated.
Lap 55/71: Russell has to cover at Turn Four this time as he nicely keeps Hamilton behind. Will Mercedes be happy for this battle to continue?
Lap 57/71: Oscar Piastri gets by Nico Hulkenberg and is into eighth. Next up the road is Kevin Magnussen but he’s seven seconds ahead of him. Max Verstappen is another eight seconds away.
Lap 57/71: This is getting very interesting now. Lando is under 3s behind the Ferrari of Leclerc. Better yet, the gap is actually 2.4s with 14 laps remaining! Rapid pace late in the stint from the McLaren.
Lap 58/71: Lando Norris is now just two seconds behind Charles Leclerc. Game on here for second place.
Lap 59/71: Norris is nearly one second behind Leclerc, who is told he needs his “best driving” now.
Lap 60/71: The gap is exactly one second between Leclerc and Norris now. But, still no DRS for Norris as he can’t get under that one-second mark.
Lap 62/71: New fastest lap from Lando Norris and he finally gets DRS. He’s within one second of Charles Leclerc. You get 15 points for finishing third, and 18 points for second. Every point matters here.
Lap 63/71: Leclerc gets a huge side through the final corner but somehow keeps it out of the barriers. That could have been a massive accident! Norris gets through though after Leclerc goes wide. WOW. The McLaren driver is eight seconds behind race leader Sainz.
Lap 64/71: Lando Norris takes six tenths out of Carlos Sainz in the last two laps and is seven seconds behind. With eight laps to go, that isn’t enough but Norris is flying!
Lap 64/71: For what feels like the 50th lap, Lewis Hamilton is still stuck behind team-mate George Russell, unable to get by with DRS. Maybe the upgraded Mercedes has less straight-line speed than Russell’s older spec? They’ve still got a comfortable buffer to Verstappen behind in sixth, so there’s no need for team orders.
Lap 66/71: Sainz ups his pace and the gap is 7.4 seconds with six laps to go. The Ferrari driver is doing enough here to win this Mexico City GP.
Lap 66/71: There we go. At last, Russell’s resolute defence comes to an end as Hamilton passes the other Merc before Turn One, getting a better exit onto the straight.
Lap 67/71: Franco Colapinto stays around the outside of Liam Lawson at Turn One and has the inside for Turn Two, but the pair make contact. Lawson brakes his front wing and is forced to pit.
Lap 68/71: Norris is 6.8 seconds behind Sainz, so it will take a few mistakes from the Ferrari driver to lose it from here.
Lap 69/71: Norris is not giving up though. Another new fastest lap on those old, hard tyres. Tremendous pace in this stint from Norris. Gap down to 6.1 seconds.
Lap 70/71: Charles Leclerc pits for some soft tyres to try and get the extra point for the fastest lap. Leclerc goes in and out of the pits in third place. Liam Lawson has just set the new fastest lap of the race back in 17th after his pit stop for a new front wing and tyres.
Carlos Sainz wins the Mexico City Grand Prix and it’s his first victory since Melbourne back in March. Lando Norris takes second and Charles Leclerc completes the podium with the fastest lap of the race. He will get a bonus point for that. Lewis Hamilton is fourth with Mercedes team-mate George Russell in fifth.
Max Verstappen has come home in sixth behind the two Mercedes, after a frustrating and controversial afternoon in which he took two separate 10s penalties for clashes with Lando Norris. His title lead has been cut to 47 points, with four rounds remaining. Carlos Sainz is off to Williams at the end of this year. Was this his last win for Ferrari? Or can he add another one in the final four rounds?
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