Red Bull's Max Verstappen snatched control of the 2021 Mexican City GP in the first corner and never looked back as he stormed to a dominant victory and extended his lead in the title battle, leaving his Mercedes rival Lewis Hamilton locked in a race-long do-or-die battle with Sergio Perez.
Hamilton narrowly held on to second at the chequered flag, but the passionate crowd celebrated third for Perez with all the enthusiasm of a victory. It's the first time a Mexican driver has been on the podium of his home race, and all-but wipes out Mercedes' lead in the constructors championship.
Pole sitter Valtteri Bottas suffered a nightmare start when he was hit from behind by McLaren's Daniel Ricciardo in turn 1, trigging a safety car. The pair spent much of the rest of the race tangling with each other as they unsuccessfully sought to recover from the back of the field after the restart.
The surprise success of Valtteri Bottas and Lewis Hamilton in locking out the front row of the grid for Mercedes meant that the team had needed to spend the intervening time since qualifying rethinking their strategy for today's race, with the focus on how to keep the Red Bulls of Max Verstappen and Sergio Perez behind them when the lights went out and through that all-important 800 metre drag race into turn 1. And if anyone at the front tripped up then we had the likes of Pierre Gasly, Carlos Sainz and Daniel Ricciardo just salivating at the merest hint of an opportunity.
The 20 cars took up their spots on the grid at the Autódromo Hermanos Rodríguez in warm, sunny conditions, Bottas being left in place for quite a time as the backmarkers made their way into position. The lights went out and neither Mercedes made a great start, allowing Verstappen to blast around the outside of turn 1 and go three-wide to take the lead. Bottas was squeezed in the middle and he was spun out after being tagged from behind by Ricciardo, whose front wing was damaged in the melee. Further back, the Mercedes spin-out shook things up with Yuki Tsunoda ending up parked on a bollard after getting sandwiched between the two Alpine cars. Mick Schumacher was also caught up and out of the race, forcing race control to scramble the safety car and neutralise procedings for a clean-up in aisle one.
Crucially, Verstappen had the lead for the restart on lap 5 with Hamilton now stuck between the two Red Bulls and with no team mate to help him. Perez was poised to pounce from third ahead of Gasly, Charles Leclerc, Antonio Giovinazzi, Carlos Sainz and Sebastian Vettel, with George Russell up to ninth for Williams ahead of Kimi Raikkonen and Fernando Alonso. Remarkably, Nikita Mazepin was up to 12th in the remaining Haas thanks to quicker drivers such as Lando Norris, Esteban Ocon and Lance Stroll starting the race behind him due to grid penalties. At the back were Ricciardo and Bottas who had used the safety car to make pit stops and change to hard tyres following their racing accident, which the race stewards surprisingly decided didn't need any further sanction.
Once the safety car pulled in, Verstappen handled the restart to perfection and Hamilton successfully protected his own position with everything much cleaner second time round. There was soon a three and a half second gap between each of the top six cars, but no one was running away with it. It was soon apparent that Russell didn't have the race pace to hold on to that elevated top ten position and he was quickly dismissed by Raikkonen and Alonso, leaving him in the crosshairs of the never knowingly subtle Mazepin, although before anything could happen the Russian was picked off by Norris and Ocon prompting him to make his first pit stop early on lap 15, which triggered a swift response in kind from the likes of Ocon and Russell in turn. Giovinazzi also pitted from eighth, resuming in 13th just behind Bottas who was struggling to find any way past Ricciardo.
Early as it was in the 71-lap race, Hamilton was already complaining about tyre wear and starting to drop off the back of Verstappen into the clutches of Perez who had no such concerns. Gasly had fallen away from the leaders but he was still comfortably ahead of the Ferraris of Leclerc and Sainz who were followed in turn by Vettel, Raikkonen, Alonso and Norris, all of whom were yet to make their first stops and still on their starter set of mediums while everyone further back had by now switched to the hard compound.
The problem for the teams was finding a clear space on track to drop their cars into after making its stop. The status quo remained until lap 30 when Hamilton was the first of the top ten to blink, and sure enough he found himself stuck in traffic behind Leclerc. The Ferrari pitted next time around to Hamilton's relief, but Perez stayed out committing him to an extended first stint. After dispatching some meddlesome backmarkers and with Gasly pitting on lap 32, Hamilton was soon setting new fastest laps in the hope of closing out the threat of the overcut from Perez, who nonetheless still seemed to be going from strength to strength on his ageing mediums.
Verstappen had room to make a stop on lap 34, temporarily handing the lead to Perez - the first Mexican driver to lead his home race in F1 history - coming back out in second place with 7.5s in hand over Hamilton. Red Bull's focus turned to securing not just a win but the 1-2, Perez even suggesting that Verstappen could do something to hold Hamilton up - although in reality the gaps between the three made that unfeasible.
Perez finally surrendered the leap on lap 41 and came back out nine seconds behind Hamilton, but with the advantage of fresher tyres allowing him to set new fastest laps and rapidly eat into the gap. Norris became the final driver to stop on lap 46, Ricciardo and Bottas having already made their second stops (after their unscheduled initial visits to pit lane at the end of lap 1) although a painfully slow service for Bottas dropped the Finn back to 14th.
With 24 laps remaining, Verstappen's lead was up to more than 12s with Hamilton now being reeled in by Perez at a steady rate. Much further back were Gasly, Leclerc, Sainz, Vettel, Raikkonen and Alonso. Norris was in the last points-paying position ahead of Giovinazzi, followed at a distance by Ricciardo, Bottas, Ocon, Russell, Stroll, Latifi and Mazepin, with just two cars (Tsunoda and Schumacher) having retired.
All eyes were on Perez' progress, and Hamilton suffered as he laboured in the dirty air trying to pass the already lapped McLaren of Lando Norris which allowed the pursuing Red Bull to get within DRS range with 11 laps remaining. Norris was finally shown blue flags by race control on lap 62, allowing both Hamilton and Perez to sweep past going through turn 4. It helped ease the pressure on the overheating Mercedes and the next group of lapped cars fell kinder to Hamilton; Perez backed off before reapplying the pressure in the final two laps as Hamilton increasingly struggled on his older tyres, but he was not quite able to pull it off in time.
Verstappen's margin at the line was almost 17s over Hamilton, with Perez just over a second further behind. Gasly was best of the rest followed by Leclerc and Sainz with the rest of the points taken by Vettel, Raikkonen, Alonso and Norris. Giovinazzi and Ricciardo just missed out on the top ten ahead of Ocon and Stroll, while Bottas finished in 15th place after making two late stops for soft tyres in pursuit of setting the fastest lap. Although he pulled it off on the final lap, he didn't get a bonus for doing so because he was outside the top ten; however he did succeed in depriving Verstappen of the extra point.
The result means that Verstappen is now 19 points ahead of Hamilton in the battle for the 2021 drivers title with four races remaining, while Mercedes' advantage in the constructors championship is now down to a single point.
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