Mexico GP: Verstappen records 14 wins in a single season

Sergio Perez takes P3 in front of the home crowd.

With a comfortable victory in Mexico GP, Max Verstappen has broken Vettel and Schumacher's record of winning the most races in a season. This turns out to be his 14th win of the season. Lewis Hamilton takes second while home hero Sergio Perez takes the final podium spot. To celebrate his second-title Max Verstappen came with a new 22k gold flashy helmet for the remainder of the season.

Starting from the pole, Max Verstappen got a stunning start as no one was coming close to him once he got away. He built over a second's gap after the end of Lap 2. He led all along and came home 15 seconds ahead of the grid. It is also the first time that pole-sitter wins the race in Mexico.

Mercedes Tyre woes

George Russell and Lewis Hamilton started from P2 and P3 respectively. However, after turn 3, Hamilton was ahead of his teammate who eventually slipped below Perez in the process. Both the Mercedes cars were put on medium tyres for a longer first stint. While their rivals Red Bull were on soft tyres.

Mercedes put on hard tyres but later it turned out that the hards aren't as good as they initially seemed to be. Both drivers were visibly frustrated. Russell even bashed out his strategists for not calling him to pit as his tyres were "finished".

After the race, Hamilton said on the radio that they are getting closer and closer to that first win. Toto Wolff admitted in response that maybe the tyre choice wasn't the right one. Russell was called in to be put on softs to secure the fastest lap and an extra point to give him an advantage in his square-off for P4 in the championship.

Another mechanical failure for Alonso

After the end of the opening laps tussle, Fernando Alonso took the P7 position and was vague to deliver today. But his stay on the track was cut short when his engine turned off he had to go off to the run-off area at Turn 1. He was clearly disappointed with the outcome as it was not the first time that his race ended because of Alpine's reliability.

This causes a Virtual Safety Car but the car was out of the way very quickly. Resulting in no reshuffling.

Ricciardo put on a show

Aussie McLaren driver Daniel Ricciardo started P11 on the grid. He was involved in a few battles from the start. His first battle was with rookie Guanyu Zhou who did a good job of holding him off. But Ricciardo breezed past the Alfa Romeo with the help of DRS on the third time asking.

His next major duel was with Alpha Tauri of Yuki Tsunoda. After getting overtaken on the pit straight, Ricciardo lined up for a switch move and saw the opportunity on Turn 6. But that corner is too angled to dive and he eventually sent Tsunoda orbiting. The damage that occurred to the Japanese was enough for his engineers to call his race off.

Upon investigation, the Australian was handed a 10-second time penalty for causing the collision. He was on soft compounds then and he was absolutely flying after that. His teammate Lando Norris was asked to let him pass as McLaren was keen to see what Ricciardo could do if cleared up. It paid off. He made a plethora of overtakes in what was a snooze-fest. He eventually cleared off Ocon with a gap of over ten seconds. Meaning that he got to keep his P7 even after applying the penalty. Esteban Ocon made some moves up the order too.