Verstappen breaks the win record and Alonso despairs with Alpine

• Mexican GP Classification and times

• World Cup 2022 Leclerc and Pérez, in the fight for the runner-up

To his personal ambition he wanted to add a lesson to his great adversary.

And he did it, boy did he do it.

's record of victories

in a World Cup was also the fiasco of

, who will still have to wait to add the first in 2022. At the moment, not even the best Mercedes Sunday is enough against

, winner of a race in Mexico without much history, not even disrupted by the late abandonment of

.

Freed from that hypothetical

, Verstappen was able to celebrate in advance.

14 wins in 20 races for an amazing 70% effectiveness.

With five laps to go before the checkered flag, Alonso's engine took its last breath.

He was running ninth at the time, in the wake of

, after another brave performance.

"What a season, what a season!" exclaimed the Spaniard, incredulous at yet another mechanical mishap.

The gestures of rage when getting out of the car gave way to greetings of thanks to the thousands of fans who cheered him.

, race director, ordered the

in while the Alpine was being removed.

And Verstappen reached the finish line with a 15-second advantage, more than double the one that had started his second relay against Hamilton.

Verstappen has so unhinged his opponents that he is no longer even aware of Ferrari.

, fifth, 10 seconds ahead of

, lost a minute to the lead.

And no one could point to the

, nor to a strategy traced to that of Red Bull.

Little could save the Madrilenian from an afternoon to be forgotten, marked by the drowning of his turbo at more than 2,200 meters of altitude.

His overtaking of Alonso, to recover fifth place, must be attributed more to the weakness of the Alpine's medium wheels with 40 laps in tow.

When the engineers had asked Fernando about the convenience of a harder shoe, the Asturian's bluntness must have filled them with joy: "I don't care what you put on, because today the car goes well with anything."

45 laps with what is on

How long would the Pirelli material last?

If not even the Italian brand itself seemed to know exactly, the Red Bull and Mercedes engineers were holding their breath.

To the traditional lamentations of Hamilton, we had to add the threat of a

caused by

and

, resolved with a 10-second penalty for the Australian.

Verstappen's gap had grown to 10 seconds.

After passing the point of no return, his options for victory were to endure 45 laps with what he was wearing.

While Hamilton was lost in a litany of wailing, he complied without batting an eyelid.

Like in a children's game.

Despite the unequivocal step forward, the race was tough for Mercedes.

On the first lap, George Russell lost his way in front of Hamilton and

, who doesn't pull any punches when he runs in front of his people.

The Ferraris looked bad, losing almost seven tenths per lap with the lead, more pending to consolidate the fifth and sixth, given the close fight that awaits with Mercedes for the constructors' runner-up position.

By the time of the first stop, Sainz and Leclerc had given up a whopping one second a lap to Verstappen.

The almost total absence of grip on the asphalt made overtaking even more difficult.

And Alonso could well thank him against Bottas, who never stood out for his expertise in these matters.

The ovetencse, despite starting with the medium compound, had swiped the place from the Finn and

, whom he has pointed out as his great rival from now to the end of the year.

Latifi's track

The fabulous cruising pace on the soft tires was Verstappen's first warning.

And when he began to show wear and tear, with Hamilton 1.6 seconds behind, he went through the garages.

Red Bull, which had become entangled with Pérez's left rear wheel, was completely precise with its leader, who returned to the track in third place.

He was running lap 25 and the two-time champion was complaining about his gearbox, while Hamilton announced power delivery losses.

The strategies were still wide open, since nothing had been extracted on Friday in the long simulation runs.

Mercedes uncovered its cards on lap 27, with the big hard compound for Hamilton.

He was able to draw some lessons from

, who acted as a guinea pig aboard his Williams.

The fact is that when he re-entered the asphalt second, he gave up seven seconds to Verstappen.

His failure, resounding, unquestionable, was to finish 15 behind the winner.

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• Max Verstappen

• Lewis Hamilton

• Sergio Perez

• Carlos Sainz Jr.

• Fernando Alonso

• Mercedes GP

• Red Bull Racing