Verstappen Moves Closer To Successful Formula One Title Defence In Mexico

28th October 2024: Max Verstappen picked up eight crucial points on Sunday around the Autódromo Hermanos Rodríguez circuit to keep a healthy FIA Formula One World Championship lead heading into the last four 2024 races.Max Verstappen of Oracle Red Bull Racing, supported by Honda as a Team Partner, finished The Dutchman had a mixed race, but dug in to hold a 47-point lead over McLaren title rival Lando Norris while Oracle Red Bull Racing teammate Sergio Pérez finished back in 17th place.Visa Cash App RB's Liam Lawson ended the day in 16th spot one ahead of the Mexican, while Japanese driver Yuki Tsunoda did not finish.

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Quotes

Oracle Red Bull Racing

MAX VERSTAPPEN

"It was a tough weekend. The start was good, but after that we had no pace, we struggled on both compounds for the rest of the race. Because of the penalties we had a long pitstop, and it was a recovery drive to score as many points as possible after that. It is what it is. We need to understand what went wrong this weekend, but there was not much else we could have done today. There's a lot of things that we want to do better, and we will need to work hard to come back stronger in Brazil."

SERGIO PéREZ

"It was a very difficult one today, we were recovering well in the race, we had a really good start and although we unfortunately got the time penalty, I think we were making progress and were going to score good points. Then I had the incident with Liam, he was the first hard tyre and we were a lot faster, we targeted the inside, we had the corner and I wasn't expecting him to be there, I had the position going into turn five, he was off the track, came back on and I wasn't expecting him to carry on straight. He took the whole side of the car off, he damaged my whole sidepod and my floor. I don't really get it, it was totally avoidable, he just went for the incident and it ruined both our races. I am very frustrated at how this weekend went, and I am very sorry for my team and my people, it was simply the worst GP I have had at home."

CHRISTIAN HORNER - CEO and Team Principal

"Not the race we had hoped for. Penalties and damage really impacted our race. Pace was an issue for us today and that is something that we will really need to look at and understand where we lost out in the race. We had good pace yesterday, but we were lacking today so there will need to be a lot of hard work between now and Brazil. Checo's race really suffered which is a huge shame in his home race. He picked up some significant damage early on and that coupled with the penalty really meant his race was shot from then on."

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LIAM LAWSON –

?"A frustrating race, not the result we wanted. With the speed we had this weekend we could have scored points. It's very disappointing to come away with nothing this weekend, especially when we had a package that was strong. We needed that clean air and unfortunately spent the whole race behind the gear box of another car. We had incidents all throughout and we tried the strategy that worked last week, but it just didn't work today. We'll learn from that and we'll try and do a better job next week." YUKI TSUNODA - DNF

"There just wasn't enough space. It was a racing incident. It was very tricky. If I had qualified where our true pace was, we wouldn't have been in that position. I'm very sorry to the team. They did a fantastic job to prepare everything from yesterday. I want to make it up to them in Brazil."

LAURENT MEKIES - Team Principal

"It's very frustrating to leave Mexico with no points. We feel the car has improved in the last two races with the updates we introduced in Austin. We had a further update this weekend on Yuki's car only, but both drivers should have it next week in Brazil. It's been one of our most competitive weekends in quite a while, in terms of pure pace, it's clear to see in all three free practice sessions with both cars running in the top 10 nearly the whole time. Yesterday, Yuki's crash was costly as the domino effect was that it also prevented Liam from getting to Q3, but that's motor racing. The weekend was derailed from that point onwards and on the opening lap of the race, Yuki was the unfortunate victim of some squeezing, which is the sort of incident that can happen in the midfield. Liam was on an inverted strategy to try and jump some of the cars ahead of us. He had a strong first stint and some good fights throughout the race, but it didn't really work for him, as he found a lot of traffic in the second part of the race. The contact with Colapinto pretty much ended any slight chance to fight for points. We will focus on having a smoother weekend in S?o Paulo in a few days' time and push very hard to see where the car's recent upturn in pace can take us."

Overall Standings