Hamilton's Fourth As Verstappen Dominates

MAX VERSTAPPEN COULD NOT HELP BUT BE FAST IN MEXICO. WITH THE RACE in the bag, and his Red Bull team monitoring the gap back to Valtteri Bottas, he could only say “I’m really sorry” when admonished for his lap times having stayed the same after agreeing to ease off.

- Edd Straw

At that point, early in the second stint of what was a one-stop race for the first and second place finishers, Bottas still had a vague hope of closing the gap after both had switched from ultra-softs to super-softs. That Verstappen could match or outpace Bottas seemingly without trying tells you everything that you need to know about his supremacy. It was a future champion’s drive on a day when Lewis Hamilton became the champion of the present.

Hamilton should have been part of that lead scrap, and momentarily was. After taking a scintillating pole position, Ferrari’s Sebastian Vettel found himself under attack from Verstappen on the outside line into the Turn 1 right-hander. Vettel pushed Verstappen wide, but not too wide, with the pair making contact out of the ensuing left-hander. Hamilton didn’t need another invitation, going around the outside of both at the Turn 3 right-hander.

Sandwiched between Verstappen and Vettel as he exited the corner, and knowing that this was his best chance to gain a track position advantage, Hamilton wasn’t going to back down. But he had to check up thanks to Verstappen’s compromised exit. Vettel did not react quickly enough to avoid hitting the right-rear corner of Hamilton’s car. The result: Vettel hurried back to the pits for a new front wing, while Hamilton crawled back for a new set of boots as Verstappen charged into the distance ahead of Bottas.

The world championship battle, such as it was, given Hamilton only needed to finish in the top five to clinch it regardless of what Vettel did, had effectively been decided by a collision. OK, in the circumstances, it wasn’t quite Alain Prost and Ayrton Senna at Suzuka 1989/1990, or Damon Hill and Jacques Villeneuve with Michael Schumacher in 1994 and ’97 respectively, but it was a moment that would have been far more controversial had there really been a championship at stake.