The organizers of the Mexican Grand Prix had previously considered an effect for the award ceremony. The driver who would win the race should be lifted up by an elevator together with his racing car to the podium, onto which the second and third placed would have to walk on foot. Since the invention of the sedan chair in early human times, it has been known that anyone who is swallowed without any effort must be a dignitary or a deserving person. Max Verstappen was without a doubt when he gave the casual lift boy on Sunday and had relaxed his right foot on the left front wheel on his ascension to the lifting platform.
Verstappen offers spectacles in Mexico
The image of the passive racing driver who can fall back on a superior means of transport on his journey to the anthem, on the one hand, was an excellent match for the spectacle that had just ended, in which Verstappen could rely on a car with “incredible speed”, as he himself admitted. A car that was “far superior” over the entire weekend, “we couldn’t really do anything about it”, as second-placed Lewis Hamilton complained.
Hamilton’s lack of chances was sobering even against the background that it was clear from the start that the very special conditions of the 2200 meters altitude Autódromo Hermanos Rodríguez would fuel the superiority of the Red Bull. The air density there is around 22 percent lower than at sea level. For aerodynamics, this means: 22 percent less downforce and 22 percent less aerodynamic drag. And Verstappen’s car is the king of downforce.
On the other hand, the image of the racing driver in the elevator did not match the enormous effort that Verstappen had put into his ninth race win of the season. An effort that lasted only a few seconds and was limited to the 811 meter long approach to the first bend. But there, in a microcosm, Verstappen showed an overtaking maneuver, brutal and ingenious, which alone should entitle you to acquire a world championship certificate.
The way he, starting third, sucked himself on the rear of Valtteri Bottas’ Silver Arrow, then pulled out of the slipstream to the left, and finally, side by side with Bottas and Hamilton, braked two racing car lengths later than these, that didn’t just leave Red Bulls motorsport consultant Helmut Marko is amazed. Most of all. “It’s unbelievable where Max braked and how he came around the curve,” said Marko. The action was “beyond good and evil”.
Verstappen’s maneuver against Bottas seems superficially supernatural
A maneuver that appeared superficially supernatural had an earthly substructure. If Bottas hadn’t started so much weaker than the runner-up Hamilton from pole position, he would have given his team-mate slipstream and not just Verstappen. As it was, however, immediately after the start, Hamilton pushed to Bottas’ side, where he had no aerodynamic advantage. On top of that, Verstappen drove on the clean side of the track, this was the only way he could dare to apply the brakes later.
The fact that Bottas made space for Verstappen on his left side, as if he were entitled to an emergency lane thanks to the blue light, amazed even his own team. Race director Michael Masi had written a clarification before the start that prohibited pushing a competitor off the track at the start. But Bottas’ team boss Toto Wolff did not accept that as an explanation. There is a difference “between not closing and keeping a bus lane free,” he said. And Hamilton said, “I covered my side of the track to make sure no one came inside. I thought Valtteri would do the same. But he left the door open to Max.” Red Bull team boss Christian Horner praised Bottas’ fairness – of course, a trap door into nowhere.
Wolff referred to the fact that Bottas’ farewell to Mercedes, which was fixed at the end of the season, could have been a driver of his passivity. Otherwise Bottas would not have achieved pole position the day before. From Wolff’s point of view, this question was also pointless, after all a much larger one flickered in neon-bright capital letters above this race: Was that it for Hamilton and Mercedes?
Only once in the history of Formula 1 has a driver not crowned himself the world title after nine race wins: Hamilton, who in 2016 even had to admit defeat to his teammate Nico Rosberg after ten triumphs. In this respect, it was worth listening carefully when Verstappen later spread the usual appeasement. The tide could turn again very quickly, he said of course – but this too: “It looks good, of course.” The 24-year-old had never leaned that far out of his cockpit.
19 points behind are still manageable. A failure of Verstappen, at the same time a victory for Hamilton, and the Briton is back in the lead with six points. But what speaks for it? Verstappen has been driving world championship for weeks, in Mexico he rolled so relaxed that he found the time to inquire about the exact distance between Hamilton and teammate Perez and to give tips as a frenzied strategist.
And the fact that he tried to slow Bottas in the process, to secure the extra point for the fastest lap, touched genius and arrogance at the same time. In addition, his team only makes the right decisions – and the Red Bull runs like it is on rails. Not just in the mountains. In Mexico, Hamilton was “grateful” for second place in the end because of the special conditions. Mercedes is still more concerned about the previous race in Austin, when the Silver Arrows were two tenths slower per lap. These are worlds.
On Sunday, Interlagos will drive the second-highest-altitude break at 700 meters, and only then will it go three times to the lowlands of the deserts of Qatar, Saudi Arabia and Abu Dhabi. “We have to perform now and maybe hope for the racing god,” said Wolff. It has never been necessary for the eloquent Viennese to dig so deep into the cliché box for lack of perspective.