If the championship had not taken such a decisive turn, the man in the spotlight after Brazil would have been Verstappen. Even in the circumstances, the Dutchman shined all over, with one of the performances of his career.
A year ago in this race, Verstappen put himself in his fourth world title with a superb drive from 17 on the Grid to win.
It’s one of those great driving days, but it’s in the wet, when these kinds of things are more likely.
On Sunday, in a dry race, Verstappen finished third after starting from the Pit Lane. To the right of the gearbox of Antonelli’s Mercedes, the car in second.
And he did it despite a blow on the sixth Lap that forced an early pit stop that dropped him from 13th place which he quickly recovered.
“Unbelievable,” is the word Verstappen used to describe it. “He did an amazing job,” Antonelli said. “It’s scary,” added Red Bull Team Principal Laurent Mekies.
What is even more amazing is that the red bull is missing the road at the end of the week. Verstappen finished fourth in the Sprint, complaining of a lack of grip. It was the fifth without it for Piastri’s crash.
And for the Grand Prix, Verstappen qualified only 16th, the first time in his entire career that he has torn through the first part of Qualifying on the pace.
Knowing the changes they made to the car for qualifying had gone wrong, Red Ball chose to change the race set-up. They agreed with the decision to leave the new floor introduced in Mexico, but made a bunch of other tweaks, including hitting a new engine.
This was broken by rules that said teams could not change the car set-up once qualifying had started; So Pun Lane begins.
In a way, even if the puncture put him back again to return to six places in three races of survival and a favor of a person who is moved between a real wheel and a good medium.
Once the race was right, he began to pass the field, until the time Norris made his last stop on Lap 54, with 17 to go, the man who inherited the lead was the inheritor of the lead.
“Not bad,” he said over the radio when his engineer Ganpiero Lokiase informed him of this.
It looks like he could stay put – and try to protect the lead – and indeed some rival engineers believe he should. That he could have won with the red bull who made two stints early in the medium from the first stop and Verstappen managed his wheels.
But Meke disagreed, saying: “I don’t think there’s any way we can get P1 if you’re just looking at it.”
And so did the Mclenenen team’s Andrea Stella: “The level of deterioration was very high, and at one stage I think the tires lost the rubber,” he said.
“I think they know at Red Bull that it is an important gamble to go to the end of the same set, and think about the reason that they have the right thing to do.”