2017 Mexican Grand Prix tyre strategies and pit stops

The Mexican Grand Prix was largely a one-stop strategy affair as usual. But the first-lap collision and later Virtual Safety Car prompted a few novel strategies.

When the two title contenders limped into the pits at the end of lap one with damage the strategic option for them was obvious: Stick a set of softs on and try to run to the end. They might have stuck with that plan: Felipe Massa did 67 laps, almost the whole race distance, on one set of softs.

But Nico Hulkenberg’s stoppage, which caused a Virtual Safety Car period, allowed some of the drivers ahead of Vettel and Hamilton to make pit stops while losing less time. That meant the best the title rivals could now so was get onto a softer tyre than their rivals in the hope of making up ground.

This worked to an extent. But Sebastian Vettel never looked likely of making it as high as the second place he needed, and that’s how it turned out.

Only two drivers tried starting on the race on anything other than the ultra-softs: Fernando Alonso and Romain Grosjean. This explains why the McLaren driver was so insistent that Grosjean receive a penalty for abusing track limits, as being stuck behind the only other driver on the same strategy compromised his chances in the race.

2017 Mexican Grand Prix tyre strategies

The tyre strategies for each driver:

	Stint 1	Stint 2	Stint 3
Max Verstappen	Ultra soft (32)	Super soft (39)
Valtteri Bottas	Ultra soft (32)	Super soft (39)
Kimi Raikkonen	Ultra soft (32)	Soft (39)
Sebastian Vettel	Ultra soft (1)	Soft (31)	Ultra soft (39)
Esteban Ocon	Ultra soft (20)	Soft (50)
Lance Stroll	Ultra soft (32)	Super soft (38)
Sergio Perez	Ultra soft (18)	Soft (32)	Ultra soft (20)
Kevin Magnussen	Ultra soft (31)	Soft (39)
Lewis Hamilton	Ultra soft (1)	Soft (30)	Super soft (39)
Fernando Alonso	Super soft (32)	Ultra soft (38)
Felipe Massa	Ultra soft (3)	Soft (67)
Stoffel Vandoorne	Ultra soft (31)	Super soft (39)
Pierre Gasly	Ultra soft (31)	Super soft (39)
Pascal Wehrlein	Ultra soft (4)	Soft (65)
Romain Grosjean	Super soft (31)	Soft (31)	Ultra soft (7)
Carlos Sainz Jnr	Ultra soft (2)	Soft (29)	Ultra soft (28)
Marcus Ericsson	Ultra soft (28)	Super soft (27)
Brendon Hartley	Ultra soft (30)
Nico Hulkenberg	Ultra soft (19)	Soft (5)
Daniel Ricciardo	Ultra soft (5)

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2017 Mexican Grand Prix pit stop times

How long each driver’s pit stops took:

	Driver	Team	Pit stop time	Gap	On lap
1	Valtteri Bottas	Mercedes	21.758		32
2	Lance Stroll	Williams	21.825	0.067	32
3	Felipe Massa	Williams	22.055	0.297	3
4	Sebastian Vettel	Ferrari	22.379	0.621	32
5	Kevin Magnussen	Haas	22.507	0.749	31
6	Sergio Perez	Force India	22.528	0.770	50
7	Kimi Raikkonen	Ferrari	22.540	0.782	32
8	Max Verstappen	Red Bull	22.570	0.812	32
9	Nico Hulkenberg	Renault	22.587	0.829	19
10	Fernando Alonso	McLaren	22.655	0.897	32
11	Esteban Ocon	Force India	22.665	0.907	20
12	Pierre Gasly	Toro Rosso	22.709	0.951	31
13	Marcus Ericsson	Sauber	22.736	0.978	28
14	Carlos Sainz Jnr	Renault	22.852	1.094	2
15	Sergio Perez	Force India	22.903	1.145	18
16	Carlos Sainz Jnr	Renault	23.035	1.277	31
17	Romain Grosjean	Haas	23.035	1.277	62
18	Lewis Hamilton	Mercedes	23.315	1.557	31
19	Pascal Wehrlein	Sauber	23.358	1.600	4
20	Stoffel Vandoorne	McLaren	28.044	6.286	31
21	Romain Grosjean	Haas	28.761	7.003	31
22	Lewis Hamilton	Mercedes	29.283	7.525	1
23	Sebastian Vettel	Ferrari	32.037	10.279	1

2017 Mexican Grand Prix

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