Sunday, October 27, 2024, 8:46 p.m.
| Updated 11:33 p.m.
Carlos Sainz had been harboring the same idea for several days: he knew that the Autódromo Hermanos Rodríguez could suit him like a glove. And boy did he do it: pole and victory, the fourth in his personal account and second this year. Despite it being the season in which he is going to be dropped from Ferrari, it is already his best year in terms of victories. Along with him on the podium, Lando Norris and Charles Leclerc, who fought hard in the final laps for second place. Verstappen, who is still the leader of the World Championship but less so, did not go beyond sixth place after having been double penalized, with 20 seconds, for his umpteenth demonstration of lack of sportsmanship while overtaking.
Fernando Alonso could not celebrate his 400th Grand Prix in any way. He abandoned when he was already around the last positions. For him, the best thing is that as soon as this year ends he will no longer have to suffer with the ‘Martin Tractor’ of this 2024. Officially, his abandonment was because a piece of garbage got into a brake cooling intake.
Sainz survives Verstappen at the start
It was known before the start that it was going to be difficult for Sainz to hold on to pole, but it wouldn’t be because the Madrid native didn’t want to. The problem is that he had Verstappen next to him. The Dutchman, who already demonstrated a week ago like so many others that he takes no prisoners, threw Sainz off the track without much consideration, thinking that perhaps this supposed impunity was going to keep her. For this reason, also in his skirmish with Lando Norris he decided to throw him off the track not once but twice. But the commissioners this time took note.
And while they were deciding whether there was a punishment or not, Tsunoda took Albon and caused a red flag and the safety car to come out. That gave everyone time to take a breath for a succession of fights that left no one breathless, and a big surprise: Verstappen got 10 seconds for every time he had thrown Norris off the track, which made a total of 20. of punishment. The obvious aggressiveness that Verstappen has always shown (it has always been one of his hallmarks) has not been so funny in this race.
The skirmishes at the top had the Ferrari team as the winners. Not only Sainz, who saw how his first position was given air, but also Charles Leclerc who, from afar, is also fighting for the World Cup. In fact, with this result, Ferrari confirms itself as a firm alternative for the constructors’ title, something that not so long ago seemed impossible.
It wasn’t Red Bull day, and that’s great news for the show. The double sanction for Verstappen was completed by a dog fight between Sergio Pérez and Liam Lawson, the test driver who has been promoted to the Visa App RB and who is on the shortlist to replace the Mexican driver himself in the medium term. The young man has a few races to prove that he deserves to be on the grid in 2025 (Colapinto also aspires to a seat at RB), and he wants to do it with his elbows out. This was demonstrated in his fight with Sergio Pérez, who destroyed the side of the car and forced him to enter the pits early.
The image of the two Red Bulls closing the grid (and with Verstappen, despite the 20-second penalty, ahead of Pérez) while the Ferraris were heading for another double with Norris third was a nightmare for the followers of a Verstappen who was He was forced to come back to minimize damage in a race he aspired to win.
And they were all there when, behind, far behind, Fernando Alonso abandoned. The Spaniard could not celebrate his 400th Grand Prix, not with a podium or a victory, something that was not in any known universe, but at least by scoring points. He barely lasted a quarter of the race in which he arrived with the round figure, in what was his first abandonment of the season.
Sainz asks for calm and Leclerc botches the double
The second part of the race was much calmer. Sainz and Leclerc held each other, with the Spaniard ahead. The situation was almost ideal for Ferrari, given that Verstappen was very far away and Pérez in the abyss, which together with Piastri fighting for the crumbs of the points at the end of the ‘top 10’, they only had to look closely at what Norris was doing . The title candidate, for his part, found the Mercedes as unexpected allies, with Russell and Hamilton fighting each other but providing a dam to contain Verstappen’s comeback.
But Norris knew he could maximize the result more, and there his victim was Leclerc. Little by little the difference was stolen from him, until he was on the same wing. It seemed like it was going to be a titanic fight, but a loud mistake that almost cost him the accident at the exit of the satellite dish allowed the McLaren driver to pass. Norris then saw himself with the advantage to maintain second place and even attempt the fastest lap, but Ferrari brought in Leclerc to ride soft tires for the finish. At Red Bull they tried to neutralize him by using Pérez who, last in any case, had nothing more to lose. But Checo cannot be counted on and he was not capable, not even with new soft tires compared to the used ones with which Leclerc took that fastest lap and the point it entails. With this result, Ferrari still overtakes Red Bull in the general constructors’ classification and heats up the World Championship even more.
