Nov 15, 20213 min read

Hometown Hero

After an extended absence from Mexico and with a two incredibly tight Championship fights entering their final phases, there was a lot of fan anticipation ahead of the Mexican Grand Prix. It’s a shame then that aside from the obvious that we will get to in a moment, the majority of the race turned into a bit of a dud.

But before this article gets all doom and gloom, it’s important to recognize and celebrate everyone’s favourite moment from the Grand Prix – Sergio Perez becoming the first ever Mexican Formula 1 Driver to finish on the podium at his home race. From the crowd’s reaction, you’d have thought he’d won the Driver’s Championship and that neither Max Verstappen nor Lewis Hamilton were on the podium. It was all about Checo on Sunday – and rightly so. Perez has always been a superb driver and appears to have taken the mantle of “tyre master” from Jenson Button when he left the sport. It’s unfortunate that it’s only been over the last two seasons that Sergio has had the machinery around him to truly prove what he’s capable of. So a third place podium in his home country after such a long time in the sport was awesome to see. It’s hard to imagine anyone being happier about it than Perez’s Dad in what will surely become a highly repeated piece of F1 footage in the years to come. Personally, I wish Perez had been able to get past Lewis and for Max have then has car issues so that Perez could have won on home soil – but there’s always next year!

As for the rest of the race, in retrospect it was all pretty much over after turn 1 lap 1. Which isn’t great. Verstappen got past both Mercedes into this corner and the race was his from there, as the young Dutchman was never really troubled after this. Hamilton tried all he could but could never get close enough and instead was forced to fend off Perez for the majority of the race. Gasly had a pretty lonely race as he started and finished in fourth – still an awesome achievement considering he’s in a midfield car but just not that exciting to watch. The same can be said of Ferrari who also had a strong race but only really had themselves to contend with.

There was a highlight a little further down the pack however as the three other former World Champions on the grid were battling each other over the bottom three places of the top ten. Vettel, Raikkonen and Alonso showed that there’s still plenty of life in these old dogs yet and kept the likes of Lando Norris at bay for the duration of the race, forcing the youngster to settle for tenth in an otherwise respectable recovery drive following an engine penalty in qualifying.

Ocon, Schumacher, Ricciardo, Tsunoda and Bottas has a dreary race after their turn 1 drama with none of them managing to scrape a point for their respective teams. Williams too had a weekend to forget, although Latifi can smirk at the fact that he was thirty four seconds (yes really) ahead of the other Haas car.

All in all, it was a pretty good race if you’re a Red Bull and/or Sergio Perez fan. If not (or if you wanted to see some more excitement further down the field) then the Mexican Grand Prix might have sent you into a light sleep as the seventy one laps unfolded. That being said, the Grand Prix circuit in Mexico is an excellent track but these current cars just aren’t designed to race closely here and allow for more overtakes. Hopefully with the regulation change next year, that will all change. Then we can see a ridiculously close on track battle for the win with Perez crossing the finish line first. Wouldn’t that be nice?