F1, race #18 Mexican GP 2021 - 5.-7.11.2021: RedBull Racing unbeatable ! Verstappen extends Championship Lead and Sergio Pérez taking Podium delighting home Fans ! - NAANII GLOBAL Luxury/Quality Family Lifestyle MAGAZINE 'en Vogue' - NAANII GLOBAL Quality & Luxury Family Lifestyle - MAGAZINE 'en Vogue'-

RACE Highlights MEXICAN GP 2021 !


Red Bull’s Max Verstappen cruised to a record third career Mexico City Grand Prix victory ahead of Mercedes’ Lewis Hamilton and Red Bull team mate Sergio Perez – who became the first Mexican driver to take a Formula 1 podium at their home race.

The joy of Valtteri Bottas’s shock pole position was short-lived as Verstappen swept around the outside of the two Mercedes into the first corner on the opening lap. Bottas was then tipped into a spin by McLaren’s Daniel Ricciardo into Turn 2 to leave Verstappen leading Hamilton then Perez behind the Safety Car, which was called back for a Lap 5 race restart, as Bottas dropped to the back of the field.

Verstappen’s pace on the medium tyres – on which everyone bar Yuki Tsunoda and Esteban Ocon started – was superior to Hamilton’s in the opening stint. With the Briton losing time to the Dutchman and his team mate Perez, he pitted for hards on Lap 30 and Verstappen followed on Lap 34, emerging second to make Perez the first Mexican to lead his home race.

Perez would come in for new hard compounds on Lap 41, nine seconds behind Hamilton, and began to take chunks out of that gap to leave it at just one second on Lap 60 of 71. Huge cheers erupted when the crowds saw how close their home hero was to Hamilton and the Briton’s case wasn’t helped when he was told to lift and coast, but Perez couldn't make the pass and ended up third – just 1.1s behind Hamilton – despite having hard tyres that were 11 laps newer than the Mercedes driver's.

'I wanted more, I wanted to win' admits Perez after making history with Mexico City podium
07 November 2021
Not only did we witness Max Verstappen take a ninth win of the season by dominating on Sunday, his team mate Sergio Perez made history in the Mexico City Grand Prix. Being an F1 driver, though, the Mexican said he wasn’t content with his result…
Perez became the first-ever Mexican to finish on the podium and lead a lap in their home race, but missed out on securing a one-two for Red Bull as he finished just over a second away from Lewis Hamilton in third at the Autodromo Hermanos Rodriguez.
Perez's family were on hand to witness him send the home crowd into raptures while his father joined in with the team celebrations on the podium as he recalled an “extremely special” day.

German Sebastian  Vettel pleased to score points after dodging Lap 1 melee, as Stroll says ‘we were on the back foot from the start’.

Sebastian Vettel took his first points in six Grands Prix with P7 in Mexico, and the Aston Martin driver said he was pleased to be back in the top 10 having dodged calamity at Turn 1.  Vettel managed to avoid Daniel Ricciardo and Valtteri Bottas’s collision on the opening lap of the Mexico City Grand Prix, with the German going on to finish P7 having qualified ninth for Sunday’s race.

“I was reasonably happy," he said afterwards. "We were on our own and we could, you know, swim with the field. The qualifying position and Lap 1 positioning was key and yes, we had a solid race.

“We obviously benefited from the spin for Valtteri [Bottas], although it actually held me up a bit, and the damage to Daniel’s [Ricciardo] car, but we managed to recover a position from [Antonio] Giovinazzi using the strategy. After that, I was on my own for most of the race with decent pace. It was a solid weekend by the team and I am pleased we could score some good points,” he explained.

As for team mate Lance Stroll (who crashed in Q1 on Saturday, above) he started at the back with a power unit and gearbox penalty, but could only make it up to 14th, taking a place off Williams’ George Russell late on and finishing ahead of Mercedes’ Valtteri Bottas – the polesitter having pitted twice to take fastest lap at the very end of the race.

“We did what we could from the back, but it was tricky today,” said Stroll. “It is difficult to race from last place here because it is not easy to follow and overtake. The car felt good, but we were on the back foot from the start.

“We were hoping things would happen in front of us to help us gain places, but we needed more to go our way. The highlight of my race was the move on George [Russell] late on, but there was not much more we could do today. Now we focus on Brazil and aim to fight for points there,” he concluded.

Aston Martin are on 68 points – 40 behind AlphaTauri and Alpine – as they head for seventh in the constructors’ championship with four races remaining.

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