[Official] Mexican Grand Prix 2022: Grand Prix Weekend Thread - Round 20 of 22

[Born Racer]

Post your thoughts here.

[Beau2]

Ridiculously close in practice across the field.

[S griffin]

Merc looking good in practice. Few incidents in it. Great to see Tsunoda up in 2nd

[bjohnsonsmith]

Three questions that immediately spring to mind are, can Verstappen get that 14th record winning race of the season, can Perez win his home GP, or can Mercedes break their duck? Which one will be answered when the chequered flag falls on Sunday?

Maybe none of them.

[E.B]

Mercedes are looking strangely fast and took 1-2 in P3, nearly half a second up on Max and over 0.7 up on the fastest Ferrari.

Surely normal service will be restored in qualy.....

[bjohnsonsmith]

That was an exciting Q3, with Verstappen taking Pole. Russell, Hamilton, Perez and Sainz, make up the top 5. Leclerd is 7th.

[Teretonga]

Red Bull and Mercedes dominate the top end of Q3. Norris, Alonso, and Ocon fill the bottom three with Ricciardo 11th. The battle for 4th in the championship might heat up here.

[tux]

Will this be any good? I didnt watch any of the sessions since Signapore so i dont know if the field is closer?

[Marcus666]

I haven't been in here for years, but want to air my frustration.

Insane how boring and stale this race is.
Has there been more than 2 overtakes?

I remember Bahrain was brilliant but now, its 2016 again.

...

[bjohnsonsmith]

Originally Posted by Marcus666

I haven't been in here for years, but want to air my frustration.

Insane how boring and stale this race is.
Has there been more than 2 overtakes?

I remember Bahrain was brilliant but now, its 2016 again.

...

Ocon just overtook Botas, with quite a nice move.

[Richard C]

Albon just lap Latifi?

Richard

[Beau2]

Great pace by Dan Ric, slightly spoiled by the silly move on Tsunoda, but very good nonetheless.

Mercedes didn't go aggressive enough on the strategy with Russell for me. Lost the chance to do something different.

[Sodemo]

It’s an awful circuit, so many slow corners, no elevation, no banked corners, dull dull dull.

[bjohnsonsmith]

Originally Posted by Beau2

Great pace by Dan Ric, slightly spoiled by the silly move on Tsunoda, but very good nonetheless.

Mercedes didn't go aggressive enough on the strategy with Russell for me. Lost the chance to do something different.

They could have split the strategy but didn't.

[bjohnsonsmith]

Congrats to Verstappen on 14 race wins in a season.

[steve_r]

Originally Posted by Sodemo

It’s an awful circuit, so many slow corners, no elevation, no banked corners, dull dull dull.

They had a chance to make something special of this track a few years ago when it was reintroduced. Even with 3 DRS zones and these new magic cars that are supposed to be able to follow one another closely, it is a another underwhelming race here. Perhaps we are being unkind, because there were some decent battles - but not for 1st, 2nd, 3rd, 4th, 5th or 6th.

[Sodemo]

Originally Posted by steve_r

They had a chance to make something special of this track a few years ago when it was reintroduced. Even with 3 DRS zones and these new magic cars that are supposed to be able to follow one another closely, it is a another underwhelming race here. Perhaps we are being unkind, because there were some decent battles - but not for 1st, 2nd, 3rd, 4th, 5th or 6th.

I am not suggesting that every circuit needs to be the same, but the previous design was fine. I can appreciate that modern safety standards would have negated the use of the original final corner (in fact I am pretty sure that was already out of action way before F1 re-used it as Indycar raced there if I recall in the 2000s and it was bypassed then). The fast-ish S bends are ok, but there is a much slower corner in the middle of the esses which means they have to brake and slow down, when before the corners started slower then gradually got faster, it was a much better flow. Virtually every corner apart from the esses are turgid, small apex corners and with cars that now weigh 800kg, they look slow.

[S griffin]

Max gets a record breaking 14 wins. Not surprising considering how dominant the RBR is and how many races we have in the season.

Overall it was a pretty processional race, with Danny providing the only entertainment

[E.B]

Originally Posted by S griffin

Max gets a record breaking 14 wins. Not surprising considering how dominant the RBR is and how many races we have in the season.

With all respects The Red Bull was not the most dominant car for much of the season, but they were the most dominant team. They screwed up far less than Ferrari, whose downfall being reliability, driver error, or strategy and poor management. Mercedes, well they have improved but then threw their one chance away with poor strategy.

Ferrari this year had a championship winning capable car.... Ferrari as a team were not capable of maximising that opportunity

Im not denying that the extra races made breaking the record easier for Max but in terms of matching it and the number of races making it easy for Max I dont buy it.... Vettel scored his 13th win in the 19th race in 2013.... Max scored his 13th win in the 19th race of this year.

As for Schumacher in 2002 he did have the huge advantage oftyres developed to suit the car by Bridgestone (who sponsored the team and by their own admission "had a special relationship with Ferrari not shared with any other team", one that was focussed on them winning.) Bridgestone themselves said those words in this interview / article from the period... The Bridgestone and Ferrari partnership

Ferrari's 53 consecutive podiums 1999- end 2002 is a record which no team, even Mercedes in their years of total dominance has ever managed to get remotely close to and the tyres were much of that success.