Sainz wins from Norris, Verstappen sixth after penalties
Carlos Sainz claimed his second victory of 2024 at the Mexican Grand Prix with a commanding drive, as Lando Norris finished second and Max Verstappen sixth after a 20-second penalty.
The Spaniard reclaimed the lead he’d lost into the opening corner and never conceded it thereafter; he built an unassailable lead which soaked up the potential of any threat from Norris in the closing stages once the McLaren driver cleared Charles Leclerc.
Sainz kept the lead through the pitstop phases and, despite occasional attempts from Leclerc to eat into an ever-growing lead, the Williams-bound driver returned the favour to continue his break-building efforts out in front.
Sainz had lost the lead to Verstappen off the line as the Red Bull driver arrived at Turn 1 first, and forced the Ferrari driver to take to the grass with his preservation of the racing line.
But the racing action was soon nullified after a first-corner clash between Alex Albon and Yuki Tsunoda brought out the safety car; Albon was pinched between Tsunoda and Pierre Gasly, and the former two ended up coalescing in the braking zone for Turn 1.
Tsunoda ended up going straight into the wall, while Albon also pulled over to retire with front-left tyre damage.
On the restart, Sainz spent two laps sat in Verstappen’s wheel tracks before gathering enough pace to mount an overtake into Turn 1 with DRS and then covered off a potential switch back into the following corners.
This put Verstappen in Norris’ clutches, and the McLaren’s bid to pass around the outside into Turn 4 was once again met with Verstappen taking him off the road.
Like Austin, Norris had laid claim to the position, but Verstappen then lunged down the inside at Turn 7 and took both drivers off once more – and got ahead of Norris off the road. Both incidents resulted in 10-second penalties for Verstappen, which sent him further down the order and took him out of the lead fight. Leclerc capitalised on the skirmish between the two championship leaders, bursting into second place.
The Monegasque couldn’t challenge his team-mate, however, and after the pit phase, Sainz’s lead had grown to over eight seconds. Leclerc attempted to cut this down, although both Ferraris were employing lift and coast tactics to gather the requisite cooling.
Sainz stabilised at over five seconds, but Leclerc’s tyres then started to run out of life and he started to fall into Norris’ orbit – when the Briton closed into DRS range at the end of lap 62, Leclerc subsequently drifted wide out of the Peraltada and almost hit the wall.
Leclerc saved the snap of oversteer, but couldn’t stop Norris from breaking past. Norris subsequently started to catch Sainz, but could only get to within 4.7 seconds at the flag.
More to follow…
