Mercedes leaves Verstappen looking silly in Mexico

• Starting Grid Classification and Times

• World Cup 2021 The pulse between Verstappen and Hamilton

Toto Wolff

, Mercedes boss, clenched his fists in the garage while his two drivers fused into a hug on the finish straight at the Autódromo Hermanos Rodríguez.

, author of the

(1: 15.875), received the sincere congratulations of

, second classified ahead of a

who paraded head down on the side of the track. The body language of the 2021 World Cup leader reflected the frustration of Red Bull, which believed itself to be dominating the situation in Mexico, but now urgently needs solutions on its dusty asphalt. The sixth position on the grid for

, two places ahead of his teammate at Ferrari, contrasted with the early elimination of

, sixteenth, but who will start twelfth due to the sanctions on four rivals.

Bottas' two laps in Q3 left the nearly 100,000 fans in the stands speechless.

In both, the Finn emphatically dominated not only the Red Bulls, but also Hamilton himself.

By morning, the Silver Arrows had lost nearly seven tenths to their great rivals.

On Friday, in the second free session, they also left almost half a second against

.

However, after some final modifications to the engine map and the W12 configuration, Mercedes was relentless.

If they have purposely hidden that authority for two days, it matters little now.

The bottom line is that on a track that should favor Red Bull,

team

ran out of scope for reply.

Verstappen suffered numerous stability problems at the rear of his car and Perez's last attempt went to waste due to a run off the track by

.

Half an hour break

This last blow was at the height of a Saturday where there was almost everything. The first eliminated, a victim of his own inexperience, was

, who smashed the front of his Aston Martin against one of the walls of the home straight. The Canadian's mistake in the last corner kept the session at a standstill for almost half an hour. And it is that

, race director, had to appear at the scene of the accident to examine in detail the protections and avoid any hypothetical contingency during the rest of the afternoon.

On his return to the track, Sainz experienced critical moments with the turbo of his SF21.

The loss of power made one fear the worst, but Carlos recovered the car, before suffering a departure from the track at turn 12. Those difficulties, solved naturally afterwards, were nothing compared to what Alonso experienced.

The elimination in Q1 was his second of the season, almost six months after what happened in Monaco.

And it should not be admissible within Alpine, no matter how much attention has shifted to the 2022 car in this World Cup finale. Those bad vibes of the two-time champion, yielding to the Alfa Romeo or

Williams

, were confirmed minutes later with

, last classified in Q2.

Alpha Tauri's moment

At that time,

and Tsunoda, fifth and third classified, shared the limelight with the favorites to the

. Changes in his power unit had relegated the Japanese to the bottom of the grid, but far from being daunted, he showed tremendous speed. Gasly's consistency is no longer surprising, as he only missed Q3 in three of the 18 races at this World Championship. Rubbing shoulders with them represented a challenge for

, who rolled two or three tenths ahead of his teammate at Ferrari, but had to finally give in to the push of the Spaniard.

Sainz's sixth final place, author of a formidable last attempt (1: 16.761), is an excellent reward for a more delicate Saturday than expected.

The fight with the Alpha Tauri and the McLaren seems crucial for Carlos.

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Know more

• sports

• Formula 1

• Max verstappen

• Lewis hamilton

• Mercedes gp

• Red bull racing

• Carlos Sainz Jr

• Fernando Alonso

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