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Ferrari didn’t quite get a second straight 1-2 in the Mexican Grand Prix, but even if it had pulled that off it wouldn’t have got half as much attention as Formula 1 title rivals Max Verstappen and Lando Norris tangling (twice) for the second time in a week.
They all features in our Mexico City winners and losers selection, along with a few others whose exploits - good and bad - might’ve got lost in the mayhem.
WINNER: CARLOS SAINZ
Sainz isn’t making any attempt to hide the wistfulness he’s feeling over Ferrari coming so good just as he’s on his way out of the team and swapping what’s suddenly become a dominant car for one nowhere near the podium.
When he pulls out commanding performances like this, it certainly seems unjust that he’s not only being ejected but not even landing at another frontrunning team. But that debate has been had enough times this season.
For now we can just be glad that his hard work and talent are getting rewards like this and he can be massively proud of his role in Ferrari’s unlikely late title bid.
LOSER: MAX VERSTAPPEN
No psychological advantage for the championship leader this time because with the stewards raining penalties on him it was Verstappen who came off second best in his latest tussle with Norris. Will it be a turning point in both their approaches to racing each other?
Probably not.
It’s easy to believe though that he’s much more bothered about Red Bull’s poor race pace than he is about the penalties or anyone else’s view of how he races.
WINNER: LANDO NORRIS
A few more points chipped off Verstappen’s championship lead, more satisfaction on the McLaren side about the outcome of their latest on-track spat and an impressive late-race charge to salvage what had seemed a pretty unlikely second place all add up to a more satisfying afternoon for Norris than he probably thought it would be when flying over the grass to dodge a lunging Red Bull.
LOSER: SERGIO PEREZ
Out in Q1. Last on the road. Throw in whatever circumstances around brake feeling, grid lines being hard to see and Liam Lawson’s driving tactics you want. Those results are still - even with mitigating circumstances - so far beneath both what Red Bull needs from its second driver and what Perez would’ve dreamed of from his home grand prix.
LOSER: LIAM LAWSON (AND RB)
But that said, while it was hard to separate Perez’s rant about Lawson’s disrespect for his elders from their unofficial fight for a 2025 seat, the fact Lawson has had spats with Fernando Alonso AND Perez AND a collision with Franco Colapinto in his first week back on the F1 grid is scruffy at best. And he wasn’t especially fast on Mexico race day as his strategy unfolded.
He does look like a better bet than Perez at the moment but he’s got to have a cleaner weekend in Brazil to bolster his own case for promotion.
And with Haas scoring well, RB really didn’t need Lawson to have an unproductive race or Yuki Tsunoda to wreck both his and his team-mate’s qualifying with a crash and then get fired into the wall on lap one - especially given the car looked pretty quick in practice.
WINNER: HAAS
By contrast to constructors’ championship sixth place rival RB, Haas had a serene weekend of overdelivering.
Getting decent final Q2 laps in before Tsunoda curtailed the session helped, and then both Kevin Magnussen and Nico Hulkenberg executed their races well - running encouragingly close to Mercedes at first and in Magnussen’s case keeping well clear of the charging Oscar Piastri to secure seventh.
LOSER: OSCAR PIASTRI
If Piastri had managed to clear Magnussen and most importantly Verstappen then he’d have escaped the loser column despite putting himself out in Q1 with an error of his own making.
But despite some great moments, his race day charge on the late-stop strategy didn’t turn out productive enough for McLaren given how well Ferrari scored.
WINNER: PIERRE GASLY
Another piece of quiet overachievement for Gasly, who was well clear of Alpine team-mate Esteban Ocon, snuck into Q3 and held his ground in the race to take a handy point that inches the team up to three points behind Williams - not that either team is going to be especially proud of eighth in the standings, and that looks like their limit given the gap to Haas and RB now.
LOSER: FERNANDO ALONSO
You probably noticed quite a lot of fuss about Alonso reaching the epic milestone of 400 F1 grand prix weekends.
You probably didn’t notice anything he or Aston Martin actually managed on track before his early retirement with brake problems.
