Max Verstappen claimed his record-breaking 14th win of the season at Sunday’s Mexican Grand Prix, after flawlessly controlling proceedings from start to finish, at the Autodromo Hermanos Rodriguez.
The Dutchman’s victory in Mexico City was actually his fourth at the venue, where he became the new record-holder for most wins in a single season, eclipsing Michael Schumacher’s and Sebastian Vettel’s previous record of 13.
The race was arguably one of his easiest of the year, with the opening few corners proving to be the only crucial part of the race for the majority of the field.
Low tyre degradation and an inability to run close together, resulted in somewhat of a procession, despite Red Bull and Mercedes having opted for different strategies.
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Mercedes opted for what ended up being a conservative Medium-Hard strategy, whereas Red Bull went ultra-aggressive with a Soft-Medium plan.
Interestingly, both Verstappen and Sergio Pérez, who finished third, were able to set almost identical lap-times to Lewis Hamilton and George Russell, whilst managing their tyres.
It really was a race of very little action, with the Mercedes duo having only been capable of matching the pace set by the Austrians even while pushing.
It arguably should’ve been a one-two for Red Bull rather than a one-three, as a slow stop for Pérez in front of his home crowd saw the Mexican lose vital seconds to Hamilton.
If it wasn’t for a poor pit-stop, then the 32-year-old would’ve most likely have jumped the seven-time World Champion, which would’ve gone down brilliantly with the driver’s home crowd.
Red Bull boss Christian Horner revealed after the race that the team are going to “investigate” the pit-stop issue, as Verstappen also faced an uncharacteristically long pit-stop at the United States Grand Prix.
“I think without the issue of the pitstop, I think Checo [Perez] would have got the jump on Lewis,” Horner told media in Mexico.
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“We need to investigate what caused that. It looks like nut actually stuck, or it wouldn’t undo cleanly.
“But it was a great recovery from him. Again, very strong pace, but just not quite enough to be able to make the pass on Lewis.
“Unfortunately, he was 0.03 of a second off [Hamilton] when he wanted to get the DRS, and so he just wasn’t quite within range.”