Mexico City (The Hawk): Max Verstappen, a Dutch Formula 1 driver, made history when he defeated Lewis Hamilton, a Mercedes driver, to win the Mexican Grand Prix on Sunday. This triumph came after an exciting strategic duel at the Autodromo Hermanos Rodriguez.
Verstappen, who already has the world championship, finished ahead of Hamilton, a past world champion and his biggest competitor, and Sergio Perez, a teammate from Red Bull.
The young Dutchman now holds the record for the most victories in a single Formula One season, surpassing Sebastian Vettel and Michael Schumacher of Germany, who each had 13 victories in 2004. (2013).
According to formula1.com, Verstappen, whose Red Bull team chose a soft-medium tyre strategy, won the race by about 15 seconds over Hamilton, who was left to wonder why Mercedes switched their starting pair of mediums for hard tyres.
Perez gave the home crowd something to cheer about in third after making a late attack on Hamilton, while Mercedes' George Russell, who started behind his teammate, finished well behind in fourth.
A stop for soft tyres with two circuits remaining at least produced the fastest lap, but Russell was also dissatisfied with his strategy and kept requesting Mercedes to pit again and get rid of the hard tyres, which failed to give the Silver Arrows a chance to win the race in the closing stages.
Carlos Sainz and Charles Leclerc finished in fifth and sixth place, respectively, ahead of Daniel Ricciardo of McLaren, who surged to seventh late in the race on soft tyres and maintained that position despite receiving a 10-second time penalty for a collision with Yuki Tsunoda. Ferrari had a lacklustre race.
After Fernando Alonso of Alpine retired late, Esteban Ocon finished eighth. Lando Norris of McLaren and Valtteri Bottas of Alfa Romeo, who was unable to match his qualifying performance, completed the points.
For an early, aggressive move on Aston Martin opponent Lance Stroll, AlphaTauri driver Pierre Gasly received a five-second penalty and ultimately lost out on a point by just half a second, with Alex Albon finishing 12th for Williams.
Vettel and Stroll's Aston Martin and Zhou Guanyu's Alfa Romeo crossed the finish line first, followed by Mick Schumacher and Kevin Magnussen's Haas vehicles.
In his Williams, Nicholas Latifi crossed the finish line last.
(Inputs from Agencies)
