Grand Prix 2018 Mexico Grand Prix Practice, Qualifying & Race Discussion

The Mexican grand prix is our next race and you lucky people have got me writing this one up. Good luck to all who carry on reading, you might need it ;)

F1 has long had a stop and start love affair with Mexico City but the Autrodromo Hermanos Circuit once again hosts this race. For those who don't already know, Autodromo Hermanos Rodriguez was in part named after two brothers who tragically lost their lives there. Ricardo died shortly after the circuit opened in 1962 and sadly his brother Pedro also died whilst racing some nine years later in 1971 but in Germany. It is located in Magdalena Mixhuca Sports City which is in the south east of Mexico City and is a public park that has been used for other events such as a baseball, the park is also home to the Insomniacs Electric Festival or EDC Mexico, a popular music festival that attracts over 200,000 people.

The thin air in Mexico City can cause problems for both drivers and cars, the speed at which the cars can get up to on the main straight is 370 km/h or 230 mph in old money. It first appeared on the calendar in 1962 as a non championship race before becoming a championship race in 1963. It remained on the calendar until 1970, had a brief reinstatement from 1986 to 1992 before finally returning again in 2015 and has since run to date. During one of the breaks it was used for the Grand Prix Of Mexico Champ Car. Sebastien Bourdais the former Toro Rosso driver apparently won three of the six races held there from 2002 - 2007.

After some speculation in the years beforehand, this race returned to the calendar in 2015. It was probably helped by having two Mexican drivers at that time with Sergio 'Checo' Perez and Esteban Gutierrez. Whilst Gutierrez is now a mere memory Perez is still there plugging away at Racing Point Force India and will no doubt be the busiest man on the grid this race weekend. Perez has never done that well at his home race, he's certainly not made an appearance on the podium so far. Can he do better this year? Somehow I doubt it unless something extraordinary happens ahead of him. Checo has of course been confirmed at Racing Point Force India in 2019 most likely with Lance Stroll as his team mate. His current team mate Esteban Ocon could be doing a straight swap with Stroll by taking his former seat at Williams.

Since 2015 we've had three different winners here, Rosberg in 2015, Hamilton in 2016 and Verstappen in 2017, so will it be a fourth different driver on the top step in 2018? In 2017 your pole sitter was Vettel and the podium was as follows: 1st Verstappen, 2nd Bottas, 3rd Raikkonen.

With only this race and two more this year it’s so far been a season for Mercedes to savour and for Ferrari to wonder where it all went so wrong. A really good race in USA and a rare win by Kimi with Seb 4th and the title goes on to Mexico. Vettel has made some big mistakes, mostly borne out of his desperation to win for Ferrari it seems, whether the pressure on him is coming from himself or the team it’s hard to say, either way it’s not done his racing any good. He did well in Austin though, that pass at the end on Bottas was crucial in some ways. Vettel and Verstappen both have new team mates coming in 2019, I am wondering what, if any, effect that will have on them. I’d like to think it would be positive but who knows?

So it's hello or Hola! to Mexico, slap on your sombrero, let your feet get tapping to the rhythmn of the mariachi bands and let’s hope we all enjoy another good race.
 
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he had issues with his car, I think that it's a bit harsh to criticise him for yesterday's race, ok the start wasn't great but it's not like 30 years ago when it was all down to the driver, nowadays it's mostly down to the car so maybe he had some issue because he was very slow off the line. Other than that I think that he drove well, he didn't overdo it when he had to scrub his tyres, pity that once again the car let him down.
He didn't have an issue with his car at the start, it was simply a bad get away nor did he have Verstappen's pace once again. He got pole on Saturday, but it would have been worth nothing even if he had reached the finish because he lost it all in the race. My reaction is intentionally just as exaggerated as the criticism towards Verstappen on Saturday which was that he failed when he was under pressure which is ridiculous considering the gap was less than three hundreds of a second.

finally fair play to vettel
Hasn't Hamilton been the sore loser all season long, making remarks such as 'interesting tricks' (Spa), disappearing from interviews (Silverstone) etc.. What a skewed comment.
 
Clay I agree the criticism of Verstappen was wrong on Saturday (although I think it was only from one or two posters) but I must pull you up on Ricciardo 'not having the pace of Verstappen'. We actually never got to see whether he did or not. He was either battling others around him or on older tyres than Max throughout the whole race so the question never got answered. I think in a straight match there would have been a tenth difference at most with it fluxing depending on who has a good lap and who has a bad one.

If Ricciardo hadn't accidently engage the Mark Webber start mode off the line I think we'd have had a good race.
 
Izumi I'm not sure that RBR was so keen on keeping Vettel in 2014, it looked to me as if Vettel had become too big (and too expensive) for them. But yes the situation is strangely similar

At the time I believe Helmut Marko said something along the lines of 'Mr Vettel's wage bill is costing us a fortune'. Plus he wasn't a young and upcoming driver anymore, that is the kind Red Bull seem to like to have. So in 2014 Seb's car became awful enough to drive that he walked away without them having to ask him to leave so to speak. That's how I saw it anyway and I am seeing the same kind of thing with Ricciardo now, he's served his purpose and they've moved on.
 
Hasn't Hamilton been the sore loser all season long, making remarks such as 'interesting tricks' (Spa), disappearing from interviews (Silverstone) etc.. What a skewed comment.

Why you trying to start a fight i meant nothing but admiration to vettel. There has been few times when vettel has been annoying & honestly most F1 Drivers on that grid have acted like children. I was just glad to see to see such a great sportsmanship & maturity from vettel. It was mustve been such a tough time for him. So to heartfelt congratulate lewis & the whole of side of the garage. Was great to see. Because like or not they are role models & its great example to youngsters
 
What is worrying for Ricciardo - Renault his future team got lapped twice in the race so nearly 3 minutes behind his current team which translates to 2.5 seconds per lap . That is a whopping difference :rolleyes:
 
So angry and worried was Max - he only got 3 hours sleep on Saturday. That is some performance then to win on Sunday without affecting your driving .

I think on Saturday he showed the wrong attitude to the situation and needed just to take a step back and rethink which is what he did on Sunday to win the race brilliantly.

Everyone is talking about him being a world championship challenger potentially. We've not seen him as an undisputed No1 so lets see how he fares next season
 
It was a class act to come and congratulate MB's team. Torger and Sebastian are neighbors in Switzerland, and visit each other often when an opportunity knocks on the door. It has been however revealed, that they never talk shop.
 
None of the active drivers is known to display unstable (psycho) tendencies thus charge is misplaced. I do not pretend to understand a person who feels comfortable to drive "that" fast, but then, I also do not understand minds of pilots bombing cities either and thinking of themselves as good guys. In any sport, performing arts and similar arenas we find people who are behaving differently than most of us. Funny thing is, we must like it, because we tune in, buy gate tickets, and applaud.
 
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Why you trying to start a fight i meant nothing but admiration to vettel. There has been few times when vettel has been annoying & honestly most F1 Drivers on that grid have acted like children. I was just glad to see to see such a great sportsmanship & maturity from vettel. It was mustve been such a tough time for him. So to heartfelt congratulate lewis & the whole of side of the garage. Was great to see. Because like or not they are role models & its great example to youngsters
The way you phrased it made it read as if it had been the first time he congratulated Hamilton in a proper manner which isn’t the case. I don’t know which moments your talking about when you say Vettel has been annoying, but at least he hasn’t been the one pointing fingers saying this and that is illegal and what not.
 
Clay the 1st one that comes to mind is the obvious multi 21 when he defied a team order from the team boss & showed no remorse, if anything was smug as he thought he was bigger than the team. We also have Baku when he lost his head & crashed into lewis on purpose then tried to make out lewis was at fault. & Using foul language aimed towards Charlie Whiting in mexico 2015 or 2016

everyone pushes the limits so tricks are nothing new on any car. I still believe the word tricks was just a slang term that cost lost in translation. as he said at the time he never meant illegal just that trick to him was something special & it was well done on finding a better way to get more ERS deployment down straights
 
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