A Tale Of Two Very Different Victories

Verstappen wins the battle, but Lewis Hamilton wins the war and becomes Brtain’s first four-time champ

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Max Verstappen took a third career victory in the Mexican Grand Prix, while Lewis Hamilton joined the select club of four-time world champions – but not in quite the way he would have wanted. After a dramatic opening-lap clash, both Hamilton and his title rival Sebastian Vettel had to battle their way through from the back of the pack, and while Vettel was at his very best, he fell two positions short of the second place he needed to stay in contention for the championship.

QUALIFYING

Mercedes have been on pole at every Mexican Grand Prix since the race returned to the Formula 1 calendar in 2015. But in 2017 the Mercedes W08 didn’t quite have the ammunition to enable Hamilton to start from the front row. Vettel and Verstappen provided the fireworks in the closing moments of the session, but it was Vettel, desperate to keep his flickering championship hopes alive, who delivered the goods.

While Verstappen described himself as “super annoyed” at missing out on a first career pole,team-mate Daniel Ricciardo was “frustrated,annoyed, helpless” after slumping to seventh as Bottas, Kimi Räikkönen and Esteban Ocon leap frogged him in their second runs.

Post-qualifying, Red Bull chose to fit a new engine to Ricciardo’s car, dropping him to 16th,just behind Romain Grosjean – the driver who set the slowest timed lap in qualifying, now starting15th, but at the head of a five-car train of driverswho had collected engine-related grid penalties.Between them, Ricciardo, Brendon Hartley,