2022 Mexican GP: Post Race Analysis

What a boring race. Tire management, fuel management, brake management, engine management. If there was ever a race that could a Sprint Race, this was it.

Red Bull still maintains the best car. Max Verstappen, record breaking 14 wins so far. Sure in more races, but to be fair he didn't have a dominating car the entire year. Ferrari was arguably the better car for the first 6 or 7 races and Max still won 4 of those races. Perez the home town hero, it would have been pretty incredible to see him win the race, but lets be honest. He still is some ways off the level of Hamilton, let alone Verstappen. A podium does put him into 2nd in the championship though.

Mercedes is on the verge of being a race winning car. An incredible feat to be 1.5 seconds off the pace and now challenging for wins. All while conforming to a budget cap, right? Hamilton once again putting in the better performance though he did kind of push his teammate off the track. All fair given it was lap 1. Tire strategy might have made a difference, it sure would have been nice for the fans. Hard to say if it really would have mattered as Verstappen was cruising out front. George Russell wasn't all that impressive. He might have been right to want softs for his final stint. He did extend his first stint long and then still got put on hards after Hamilton was vocal about being a poor tire. Tough call.

Ferrari was in their there own league... in a bad way. The theory being they really turned the engines down and opened up the cooling ducts for reliability. It's not too often Sainz has a better result than Leclerc. Leclerc did complain of power issues in quali, unsure if that carried over to the race. Ferrari are now dangerously at risk of being overtaken by Mercedes in the WCC.

McLaren had a good day, closing in on Alpine in the WCC. Daniel Riccardo drove like a mad man and was the most exciting part of the race. Including his silly move on Tsunoda that warranted the 10 second penalty. Despite the penalty he stays in 7th place. It showed that the soft tires were a great choice in the final laps. Norris had to deal with brake issues, and perhaps the tire choices weren't optimal. Points is still a good day.

Alpine were certainly looking at double points. Alonso might not have been able to hold off Ricciardo, but he has shown some incredible defense in the past, so 7th was possible. Unfortunately he has such rotten luck. Ocon still a decent drive to get 8th, which is critical to their championship.

Alfa Romeo have to be satisfied to have a decent performing car. Bottas was the star of Qualifying, but didn't really have the car to hold position in the race. Maybe he could have done a better job to have a shot at 8th, but at this point the team will take any points they can get. Zhou has shown great pace in recent races, didn't have a strong race today.

AlphaTauri just missed out on points with a charging Gasly. Who knows where Tsunoda would have finished since up to the point of his DNF, everyone was sleeping.

Williams had a pretty good car in the thin air of Mexico. Albon a solid 12th place. Latifi drove bad, even for Latifi. Last I saw he was well over 1 minute behind his teammate.

Aston Martin had a super start but that was as good as was going to get. The car looked like a handful and wasn't kind on its tires. Vettel stayed in the fight, but it was just for 14th place, so it didn't mean much. Stroll, he finished behind Vettel. The end.

Haas might have turned their engines down and opened the ducts up the same as Ferrari, which makes sense since they have the same PU and same sidepod design. They didn't have a car to fight for anything. Mick did finish ahead of Magnussen which helps his chances at keeping his seat.

Driver of the Day: Daniel Ricciardo. Sure he caused a crash, deserved a penalty, and had a much better tire at the end, but at least he drove with an attempt to go fast and make passes.

 

Fully agreed as per usual!

 

Worst track for passing besides Monaco.

 

Ric needs to copy his collision setup (alignment). It suited his style. lol

 

All the tracks are bad for passing; something to do with the cars, IMO.

 

Another domination by Max. Checo would have been 2nd if not for long pit stop and behind those slow F cars. Max driver of the day with Alonso right behind him. Danny Ric finally drove a half decent race but running other drivers off the track won't get you driver of the day IMHO.

 

Amazingly so - appears it would be a good track for passing but not of late. Singapore is a bit worse actually.

 

This is easily fixed by having more races on the track throughout the year, or replace the asphalt. This track is almost never used. Offline zero traction, litle overtaking..simple

 

The key points from this race are this:

- The Red Bulls and the Mercedes were clearly the two fastest cars. I don't think the cars mattered in this race. They were roughly equal.
- Red Bull won because of their drivers, pit wall and tire strategy.
- I believe if the teams traded cars but ran the exact same race you would get the exact same podium.

My conclusion is this is the first time Mercedes has brought a car that is good enough to win to a track this year.

/

 

The RB18 is slightly faster than the W13 on the straight and the RB18 has better tire degradation than the W13.....the Mercedes strategist were waiting for Max's mediums to "fall off" towards the end of the race....but with Max pulling 1:22's lap after lap, the mediums on the RB18 could have gone an extra 20 more laps towards the end with Max pulling the same lap times.

 

I think it's worth noting Max won from pole, while last year he took 1st in turn 1 from 3rd, yet the Mercedes crew didn't come close. If HAM forced RUS off at turn 1, nothing new there considering how often that seemed to happen with HAM/BOT.

Yeah, Latifi was like 52 seconds behind MAG last time I noticed in the race, surely the car had an issue?

HAM was around 2 seconds behind MAX at the first pit stops, but the gap only grew larger once we had Max on MED and Lewis on HARD. Agree that Red Bull just out-foxed Mercedes on tire strategy in Mexico.

Despite being a 2 time champ, I have to give credit to ALO for still racing, also champion of bad luck. Is there any chance Aston Martin will work out any better for him next year?

Is there a pay-per-view TV broadcast that doesn't carry any driver's whining on the radio? That might be worth paying for! HAM saying VER gained time on the VCS was pretty funny, along with all the other driver complaints.

 

Yes, large cars with long wheelbase. How long will it take before they're long enough to take passengers?! Or need to make three point turns in chicanes. The same goes for the new LM Hyper cars. I'm not digging those looooong wheelbases.

 

Don't give Liberty any ideas. "coming in 2024, Fanlaps...the ultimate F1 experience, drive along with your favourite driver for the whole race"

 

Yes, that combined with shorter braking distances and higher corner speeds leave very few opportunities to "overtake".

Slowing down for corners with steel brakes and manual gearboxes used to be a skill that has disappeared.

It used to make the difference between drivers, in the old days. Jackie Stewart commented on that not so long ago ...

 

Speaking of Stewart, has he been at recent races? Is he OK? Helen?

 

Here he is at Goodwood in September:
Image Unavailable, Please Login

 

No doubt Max's straight line speed gave him an edge on the straight to the first corner at the start of the race.

I'm not sure if Red Bull out-foxed Mercedes on tire strategy -- or if Mercedes did it all by themselves.

The best strategy might have been Medium --> Soft (we don't really know for certain).

Mercedes could have easily split the strategy, and put one car on Medium - Hard, and the other on Medium - Soft (like George requested).

There was almost no risk because the Ferraris were a full straight behind. They didn't take a risk. That's not on Redbull.

/

 

Being that the first mile is straight, and the RB had at least a 6 MPH speed advantage leads to pole winning.

 

You mean the first HALF-MILE is straight (800m).
For F1, the FIA wouldn't homologate a track with a mile long straight (1609m).
I believe the maximum allowed is 6/8 of a mile (~1200m), hence the chicanes on some circuits.

 

Technically, Paul Richard has a mile long straight (Mistral), F1 just does not use it.

 

Is 6/8 French for 3/4?

 

Circuit Paul Ricard was designed before these limits were introduced, so the FIA imposed a chicane; same for Le Mans Straight which has now 2 chicanes.

 

Pirelli might want to adjust the compound or bring different tires for next year? Effectively the Medium is now the hard for use in Mexico City. The track/ altitude etc are unique overall compared to most circuits.