2023 F1 Mexican GP: Winners and losers
The 2023 F1 Mexican GP was surprisingly eventful. More often than not, the race tends to have more of a 'slow boil' feel to it with strategies playing out over it as compared to the action-packed one we had this time around.
Max Verstappen got the lead at the start of the race and held on to it during the red flag restart as well. The Dutch driver did a brilliant job overall and picked up his 16th win. Lewis Hamilton was P2 behind him with a brilliant drive as he kept the car on the road and brought home a decent haul of points.
Charles Leclerc was P3 and picked up his fourth podium of the season in a race where he arguably got disadvantaged by the Red Flag.
Overall, with the 2023 F1 Mexican GP race weekend done and dusted, who would be happy with how the weekend went, and who would be disappointed? Let's take a look.
2023 F1 Mexican GP
Winner
Max Verstappen
The Dutchman does not make many mistakes these days and the 2023 F1 Mexican GP was no different.
Once he got the jump at the start he had the pace to continue and pull away at the front. The two-stopper was interesting and could have seen an interesting battle at the end of the race but overall it did appear that Max Verstappen had everything covered.
Win No.16 for Verstappen as he continues to build an all-time great single-season performance by a driver.
Loser
Sergio Perez
The 2023 F1 Mexican GP could just be the race where Sergio Perez loses his seat at Red Bull. He had a strong performance in reserve this weekend and that is something that he should have used to secure a podium at the least.
With Daniel Ricciardo putting together a brilliant weekend, Perez chose the wrong one to mess up.
Winner
Daniel Ricciardo
This was the Daniel Ricciardo of old. The old Ricciardo was not only fast but very smooth in the manner in which he conducted the entire race. He had the pace but he also had the composure to understand that the points meant a lot to AlphaTauri and hence didn't take too many risks.
Most importantly, the 2023 F1 Mexican GP shut up quite a few who doubted the Australian.
Loser
McLaren
McLaren should have been on the podium at the 2023 F1 Mexican GP. That's something that the team should take away from Lando Norris' race because the driver was on the rails in that final stint where passed cars for fun.
The mistake was primarily Norris' in qualifying which left him in the position where he was just trying to make up places all race but the team could have been more pre-emptive of a possible yellow flag.
These weekends are fine when the championship is sealed but will become more and more important when it isn't.
Winner
Lewis Hamilton
With the latest string of upgrades, Lewis Hamilton has clearly found something in the car that has shot him further up the grid. The Brit was just brilliant in the 2023 F1 Mexican GP and the way pulled off those overtakes especially the one on Leclerc was just standout ruthless driving.
It's safe to say that P2 in the championship is not as much of a long shot as it might have appeared after Austin.
Loser
Ferrari
Fred Vasseur was not too happy after the race and rightly so. Ferrari has a very peculiarly peaky car at the moment and it's so hard to predict when it will work properly and when it won't.
This was pretty much the case when Charles Leclerc put together a brilliant first stint in the 2023 F1 Mexican GP on medium tires. As soon as he did switch to the hard tires the car just had no competitive pace.
A podium is still a good result but the race showed how much Ferrari still has to work on its car.