Charles Leclerc (P6, 8 pts): 6.5/10
One of the biggest mysteries of the weekend was, what happened to Ferrari? While they might have missed out on this year's titles, they've been reliably competitive all year with Charles Leclerc having taken nine pole positions, more than Max Verstappen (although the situation was obviously reversed in race trim). But this weekend, you'd barely know that Ferrari were even in town. The F1-75 seemed to be gasping for breath in the high altitude thin air. It wasn't immediately noticeable on Friday when Leclerc was second in FP1, but he had a needless crash in FP2 and started falling back in FP3. While he made it through to the final round of qualifying (it would have been headline news if he hadn't), Leclerc drifted to an entirely underwhelming seventh on the grid two places behind his team mate Carlos Sainz. In the race he quickly got the better of Valtteri Bottas at the start, but after that spent virtually the entire afternoon (save for pit stops) in sixth place, following Sainz but neither of them able to make any forward progress whatsoever. By the end of the day you'd pretty much stopped noticing that Ferrari were even there. "It was a lonely race," Leclerc acknowledged afterwards. "Carlos and I were lapping together, too quick for the midfield but too slow for the front runners.
Carlos Sainz (P5, 10 pts): 7.5/10
The story this weekend for Carlos Sainz is similar to that of Charles Leclerc, although Sainz comes out of the Mexican Grand Prix looking slightly better. For one thing he was quickest of anyone in first practice, although the margin over his Ferrari team mate was just 0.046s. Skipping over the irrelevant FP2 tyre test, Sainz dropped back to sixth in FP3 and duly ended up taking an okay but mediocre fifth place on the grid in qualifying. The Ferrari just simply didn't seem to have its usual speed this weekend, most likely due to the engine struggle for air intake at the high altitude. Sainz did manage to hold position at the start of the race with Leclerc tucking in behind, and ... That's really pretty much it. They were dropped by the leaders but never seriously threatened by the midfield cars behind and so they stayed fifth and sixth all the way to the finish. It must have felt like the most boring test day ever for them, but hopefully it gave Sainz time to appreciate the distinctive carnival colours and costumes on display in the grandstands. Other than that, nothing much to see here for Ferrari.
