Photo courtesy of Formula 1
Max Verstappen dominated from pole position to win the 2022 Mexican Grand Prix, clinching his 14th win of the season. The win gives the Dutchman the single-season record for wins, breaking the record of 13 set by Michael Schumacher in 2004 and Sebastian Vettel in 2013.
“An incredible result,” Verstappen said. “It’s been an incredible year so far. We’re definitely enjoying it and we’ll try to go for more [wins].”
The Dutchman cruised away from both Mercedes drivers on the opening lap and held serve until he pitted on Lap 25. Lewis Hamilton took the lead and attempted to stretch out his lead on the medium tire, but lost his lead four laps later when Verstappen took a seven-second lead over Hamilton when the Mercedes driver came out of pit road.
George Russell, who started on the front row and was the fastest driver in the second and third practice sessions, stayed out to have a lead but lost time to the Red Bull Racing driver on fresher tires.
Russell pitted for hard tires and came out in fourth place. Both Mercedes drivers struggled on the hard tires as the Red Bull medium tires lasted for the rest of the race. Similar to the 2021 season, the Red Bull and Mercedes drivers split each other with Verstappen, Hamilton, Sergio Perez and Russell making up the top four finishers.
Russell built such a huge gap over Carlos Sainz in fifth place that he pitted for soft tires on Lap 70. On the final lap, Russell took the point for fastest lap of the race.
The podium was the same as last year. Perez finished third for the final podium spot for the second-consecutive year in his home race at Autodromo Hermanos Rodriguez in Mexico City.
“It’s a good podium,” Perez said. “In front of this crowd, I really wanted more but third place is still a good day.”
Outside of the first practice, Ferrari lacked race-winning pace and played second fiddle to the top two teams. Sainz and Charles Leclerc came home to finish fifth and sixth.
The star of the 2022 Mexican Grand Prix was Daniel Ricciardo, who is wrapping up his McLaren tenure.
On Lap 51, Ricciardo was battling for 11th place with Yuki Tsunoda when he made contact with the Japanese driver in Turn 6.
He suffered a 10-second time penalty, then went on an absolute tear that was reminiscent of his time with Red Bull. He passed his teammate Lando Norris, Valtteri Bottas and both Alpine drivers, Fernando Alonso and Esteban Ocon for seventh place.
Ricciardo pulled away to finish over 10 seconds ahead of the eighth-place Ocon, meaning that once his penalty went into effect, he still finished seventh for his third-best finish of the season (fifth at Singapore and sixth at Australia). He was voted Driver of the Day.
Ocon finished eighth to salvage points for Alpine after Alonso suffered an engine failure on Lap 65, forcing him to retire from the race.
Norris and Bottas rounded out the top-10 finishers at Mexico City.
The 2022 Formula 1 season has two races left. In two weeks on Nov. 13, Interlagos will host the penultimate race of the season for the Brazilian Grand Prix. The race will begin at 1:00 p.m. ET and will air on ESPN.
Race results:
