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The choreography of the Mexican Grand Prix made for a great show. One which was enhanced by the championship situations in these last quick-fire run-down races of the season, the whole tempo and fever of things amplified enormously, especially so straight off the back of Austin's Verstappen-Norris controversy and the resurgence of Ferrari, both of which were repeated here as Carlos Sainz took a great, fighting victory from pole, having lost out at the start to Max Verstappen only to make a forceful retaliation.
But Sainz isn't Verstappen's focus as he fights to keep his points lead in a slower car; Lando Norris is.
Verstappen's every dubious move is invariably against him - and as he admitted before the weekend he 'plays' with the rules. Just as he did in the late stages of 2021 in his title fight with Lewis Hamilton with a car disadvantage.
He's always prepared to walk that tightrope in battle but when it gets tight with a title on the line, he's prepared to go over-centre. As he himself said in one of his Viaplay documentaries a couple of years ago: "You do everything you can to win. Sometimes you even have to be a dick to win."
Whether he would put his moves on Norris on lap 10 in Turns 4 and 7 into that category, only he can know.
But this time even the stewards agreed he'd gone way over the top in pushing Norris off track defending at Turn 4 and then overtaking way off track at Turn 7 after taking an unfeasible speed into the apex for the line he was on.
Compared to his normal lap two laps later, to get up Norris's inside at the fifth-gear turn - most emphatically not a conventional overtaking spot - he is 60 metres later on the gas and almost 100 metres later on the brakes.
It put him ahead at the apex, but the pass doesn't count if you leave the track.
He was awarded two 10-second penalties, one for each offence.
But you might argue that he still gamed the system. Which might explain his apparent indifference to the penalties. It arguably lost Norris the race - because being stuck at the Red Bull's pace for all of the first stint while the Ferraris pulled away meant he was 15s behind Sainz by the time he got clear air as Verstappen pitted on lap 26 (of 71).
Norris's great pace on the hards in the second stint got him within five seconds of Sainz at the flag. Not strictly proof - who knows how much Sainz was just controlling the gap, keeping the brakes and everything from overheating in the thin air - but enough of a gain to make it a valid question.
Norris might have won the race but for Verstappen's deliberate targeted fouls.
Max knew the Red Bull did not have the pace of Ferrari or McLaren here - the way Sainz blew past him, the way Norris immediately attacked him - so the tactical play was to damage Norris's race.
"He will even sacrifice himself," as Norris summarised.
"I knew what to expect, but I didn't want to expect it because I respect him. But that was not very clean driving."
But Norris just kept out of trouble, avoiding any contact that would play into Verstappen's favour as the guy with a big points lead. Then cracked on, lighting up as the car responded favourably to the hard tyres in the second stint.
It wasn't only tyres, though. McLaren had been keeping a very tight leash on his power unit settings as he sat behind Verstappen - and that had saved him quite a lot of fuel. He could now unleash that as he chased the Ferraris down. Then there was the wind.
"It's tiny details that make the difference between the cars," Norris said. "The wind changed direction and suddenly the car came alive."
So Leclerc - a little off Sainz's pace this weekend, the difference amplified in the race by having to do more lift and coasting to keep the temperatures under control compared to the race leader in clear air - was something of a sitting duck as Norris made his late advance.
His only hope was to hold him off long enough that the McLaren began to overheat. But McLaren hadn’t gone quite as racy as Ferrari on cooling levels - which was quite possibly what won Sainz pole and the race over Norris.
Ferrari was bold in its choices for both power unit and brake cooling here. To the benefit of aero, of course. They were the sort of choices made by a team confident it could run at the front, and with an outside run at the constructors' championship.
Sainz made clinical use of it all. He lost out to Verstappen at the start, but he was half expecting that.
"This is a low-grip surface," he pointed out, "and the Red Bull tends to start really well on these sorts of surfaces."
He sat it out around the outside of the Red Bull into Turn 1 but with the escape route of the grass - which he took, before giving the lead back before they reached Turn 4.
He was irritated, though. Not so much with Verstappen, but because he knew he needed to be in clear air. He'd even hinted at it after setting pole. "It's very important for the cooling of the car and the management of the race to be leading." Especially with a marginal cooling package. So he was determined to get it back as quickly as possible.
The first six laps were run under the safety car (while the mess from the interlocking Yuki Tsunoda/Alex Albon wrecks was cleared). The following four laps were Sainz forcing Verstappen to use up his battery charge staying out of the Ferrari's DRS reach. That done, he pounced from a long way back into lap 9, taking Verstappen - irritated at the empty battery - by surprise.
"I didn't really prepare the move," said Sainz. "I knew I needed to surprise him as he is difficult to pass. I thought I was a bit too far back on the straight but then I was gaining fast in the last 100 metres..."
With the Red Bull battery giving Max no more help, Sainz, with DRS and full deployment just couldn’t resist. "I've been strong on the brakes into Turn 1 all weekend," he related, "so I knew I could do it."
It was a little ragged - he clanked over the Turn 1 apex kerb at an awkward angle and locked up the fronts into the left-hander in the stadium later in the lap - but he was through. Into the valuable clean air. That was the victory won.
On the next lap, Norris made his attack on the Red Bull into Turn 4, got ahead, got forced off, rejoined ahead, only for Verstappen's retaliation three corners later. That allowed Leclerc to pass them both, putting Ferrari 1-2. Just where they'd left off in the US.
With Leclerc spending virtually all of the second stint lifting and coasting, his efforts at reducing the gap to Sainz - which got him to within 1.6s by lap 17 and got Sainz complaining - were called off.
Norris rejoined on his hards five seconds behind Leclerc, with Sainz another eight up the road. On its favoured tyre and with its favoured wind direction, the McLaren was flying - and not as vulnerable as the Ferrari to cooking its brakes.
With nine laps to go, trying to maximise his speed out of the final corner so as to give himself a chance against Norris, who was now in DRS range, Leclerc rescued a tank slapper at huge speed, and Norris was through.
All that was left for Leclerc was a second stop for a fresh set of tyres on which to take the race's fastest lap point. For Sainz, the last few laps were a little tense as he monitored his gap to the attacking McLaren but essentially it was under control.
A long way behind Leclerc, 44s off the lead, Lewis Hamilton won the in-team Mercedes fight over George Russell which had see-sawed between them most of the race, Russell compromised by bit of front wing damage inflicted by a kerb.
Only then came the penalised Verstappen, 15s behind Hamilton after taking the additional 20s at his stop.
"The biggest problem that I have is that today was a bad day in terms of race pace," said Verstappen. "That was quite clear again on the mediums and on the hard tyres." He wasn’t up for discussing the Norris incident.
Kevin Magnussen made it a great weekend for Haas with seventh place, holding off Oscar Piastri's McLaren - which had started 17th - ahead of Hulkenberg's Haas and Pierre Gasly's Alpine.
Fernando Alonso retired early from his 400th grand prix with a brake problem. Sergio Perez from 18th made some progress before clashing with his likely replacement Liam Lawson and damaging the sidepod - sending him tumbling back down to where he started.
Another race down, Ferrari pushing Red Bull down to third in the constructors' championship, just 29 points behind McLaren.
Sainz had achieved his mission of winning at least one more race before he leaves the team and declared: "From now, we can dream about the constructors'."
