Lando Norris won the Mexico City Grand Prix with a consummate drive from pole to flag that catapulted him into the lead of an intense world championship fight with McLaren team-mate Oscar Piastri and Red Bull’s Max Verstappen. With Piastri managing only fifth and Verstappen in third at the Autódromo Hermanos Rodríguez, Norris now has the edge at a crucial juncture, with only four meetings remaining.
Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc was in second, while Britain’s Oliver Bearman took a career-best fourth place with a superb drive for Haas.
For Norris, absolutely dominant and unchallenged from the moment he held the lead through turn one, this was a huge result. It is the first time he has held the lead of the championship since the Saudi Arabian GP in April. After Piastri moved ahead in Jeddah, the Australian has maintained a tight grip on the lead but Norris has made his comeback at an enormously significant moment and now has momentum over his team-mate.
Norris leads Piastri by one point with Verstappen in third 36 off the pace. The two McLaren team-mates lead the charge in a nip-and-tuck fight but the defending champion is still very much in the game and all three are likely to take the title to the wire in the season finale at Abu Dhabi.
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It represents a remarkable turnaround in fortunes for Norris, who had been left disconsolate after he suffered a mechanical failure at the Dutch GP in August. The DNF dropped the 25-year-old 34 points behind Piastri, at which point Verstappen was 104 points in arrears and the Australian appeared to hold all the cards.
Norris said after the race at Zandvoort that he would likely have to throw caution to the wind in order to catch his team-mate and it appeared a reasonable stance. However, what followed was in fact a controlled and measured response that has proved hugely effective and may yet prove decisive.
As Verstappen and Red Bull found their form with a series of upgrades, Norris kept his head down and returned a string of solid podiums behind the Dutchman, marred only by a costly poor qualifying in Baku. As Verstappen closed the gap in leaps and bounds to Piastri, Norris too was all the while edging up too.
He was assisted in no little part by the Australian enduring his worse form of the year after having been on the podium for every race bar one between the second meeting of the season and Monza.
Piastri made a false start in Baku, dropped to the back and subsequently crashed out with an unforced error. He could manage only fourth in Singapore and in Austin was fifth. A similarly lacklustre showing in Mexico, where he seemed exasperated by his lack of pace, has seen his lead erased. Poor qualifying was costly and starting in seventh he found himself mired in a midfield struggle on which he could make little impact.
All eyes had been on Verstappen’s advance but Norris had been maximising his opportunities and at a vital moment. With 116 points still on the table, where the two McLaren drivers stand in relation to one another could yet become a decisive differentiator.
The team principal, Andrea Stella, has said they would prioritise one driver should it be required to ensure they seal their first drivers’ championship since 2008. If Verstappen makes further inroads in the forthcoming rounds and the team choose to head off his threat, they will favour the pedaller in front at that point. Having the lead in these late stages, then, is more important than ever.
Norris kept his head and delivered with cool assurance in Mexico City when it mattered. He held his lead in a breathtaking run on the long drag to turn one as the leaders went three abreast and within several laps had opened a huge seven second lead. In clean air he was relentless to the flag.
Piastri had a shocker, however, dropping amid the jostling down the straight from seventh to 10th. He had to fight back across the remaining 70 laps and did well to make it to fifth, including a decisive move on George Russell on lap 61. But it was at best damage limitation of the form he can simply no longer afford.
Verstappen eked out the maximum from fifth on the grid, on a counter strategy going long. Indeed he might have taken second at the death but for a virtual safety car being called on the penultimate lap. Nonetheless, with the Red Bull not at its best in Mexico he will consider he extracted all he could.
For McLaren, to defeat Verstappen so comprehensively will give them encouragement that their car still has an advantage in certain conditions. On a surface that punished the rubber, the ease with which their car handles its tyres, an area where they have truly excelled this season, once more proved to be the vital. Norris was able to push the car harder and faster than any of his rivals and will feel his tilt at the title is now well and truly on.
Lewis Hamilton might have been fighting for his first podium with Ferrari but for a 10-second penalty for gaining an advantage by leaving the track when competing with Verstappen and he finished in eighth. – Guardian
