Verstappen has strategic edge even if he can’t break Ferrari’s defence at the start

By his own admission, Charles Leclerc has given up on predicting whether his Ferrari team will be strong, weak or even just average ahead of grands prix weekends in 2023.

Ferrari’s form has fluctuated over the season – and even between individual days of the same race weekend. But nowhere has that been more the case than in Mexico City.

In each of the three practice sessions around the Autodromo Hermanos Rodriguez, Max Verstappen set the pace by an average of just under a tenth of a second. In comparison, Leclerc averaged seventh position and six-and-a-half tenths off Verstappen over those same three sessions. Hardly the favourite for pole position.

And yet, come the chequered flag in Q3, Leclerc was not only on pole position for the second straight Sunday, but he had done so without improving on his final run. Verstappen was not only behind Leclerc but also the second Ferrari of Carlos Sainz Jnr. No wonder Leclerc was caught by surprise.

“Until Q3, we had no idea that it was inside the car,” Leclerc admitted after qualifying. “For some reason in Q3, I managed to put more or less everything together apart from the last sector and straight away the lap time came straight away. So that was a good surprise.”

Sometimes it requires just one mistake or one corner taken in a less than ideal manner for a pole position to be lost in 2023. But over their laps, Verstappen was chasing Leclerc from the moment they exited the first chicane.

Interestingly, the pair took very different approaches to the low-speed corners in the middle sector, Verstappen preferring to brake earlier than the Ferrari driver for a better exit while Leclerc carried more speed into the apex. Verstappen was also able to keep his foot to the floor longer through the sweepers longer than Leclerc, but despite the different styles of the two, Verstappen gained back none of the time he lost through the first chicane.

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While Verstappen in third was a shock, perhaps the bigger surprise was the driver who will line up directly behind him on the second row of the grid. Not his team mate, local hero Sergio Perez, but Daniel Ricciardo. Despite driving for Red Bull’s junior team once more, Ricciardo will start from as high as fourth on the grid for only the second time in the last three years. It was enough to bring out the Incredible Hulk in him.

“I just want to rip my shirt off,” he said. “I’m very happy with P4 – it’s an amazing result for us as a team. On one hand I think the result is crazy, but already from yesterday really from the first lap I just had a lot of good feeling in the car.”

Ferrari may have secured a front row lockout almost out of the blue, but now comes the more difficult challenge of keeping both of their cars ahead of Verstappen. The 800 metre sprint from the grid to the first braking zone on the circuit is the longest on the calendar, with drivers reaching well over 300kph before they even consider putting their braking foot down.

Verstappen may have the advantage of likely picking up a slipstream from either or both Ferraris during the long run to turn one, but Ferrari have strength in numbers. However, even second-placed Sainz admits that Verstappen could be in the box seat by starting from third.

“It’s impossible to predict these kind of things,” Sainz said. “Only thing I can say is I’m starting, maybe, on the dirty side, which here is quite a big difference. I think it will be a fun start, a fun run down to turn one. I think Max will be on the attack. We will all be trying to get slipstream.”

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Two years ago, Verstappen started from that same third position behind the Mercedes of Valtteri Bottas and Lewis Hamilton but was leading by the time they all reached the first corner. However, Verstappen played down his chances of emulating his 2021 start on Sunday.

“I always learned that you can never repeat the same start, from when I was little,” he said. “It depends on how good your actual start is, then the line to the first corner – there’s a lot that comes into play. Track conditions as well, for example. So it is more just an instinct and once you do your start, you make your mind up of what you’re going to do.”

Beyond the run to turn one, a gruelling race of 71 laps lies ahead. On Friday, all of the leading candidates for victory ran their race simulation runs on the medium tyre, which makes for a more direct comparison than most race weekends. Verstappen’s pace over his 12-lap run in second practice was around half a second a lap quicker than Leclerc’s, with Perez and even Hamilton lapping at a superior pace to the Ferrari driver. However, the quickest of all over the high fuel runs, Lando Norris in the McLaren, will be starting from near the back of the grid and is unlikely to feature in the fight at the front.

Last year, Verstappen managed to beat Mercedes by running a one-stop strategy using soft tyres before switching to mediums, while Mercedes ran a stage harder than the Red Bull in each stint for Hamilton. This year, the tyres Pirelli have brought are all a step softer than 2022, meaning Verstappen’s race winning ‘soft-medium’ strategy is now the ‘medium-hard’ strategy.

Unsurprisingly, Pirelli expect that approach will be the best way to reach the chequered flag first. Ferrari’s Achilles heel all season has been their tyre degradation, so over a race where managing tyres over a likely one-stop will be key, Red Bull will feel they could have an edge. Unlike the Ferraris, Verstappen also has two untouched sets of hard tyres to use – an advantage he was quick to draw attention to after missing out on the front row of the grid yesterday.

But signs point to the Mexico Grand Prix largely playing out similar to the race in Baku early on in the season, where Leclerc started ahead of both Red Bulls but was quickly dispatched by both to finish behind them. Even though Sainz is in the mix this time around, he admits it is a tall order to try and keep the world champion at bay during the race.

“He’s obviously a very difficult guy to keep behind because of the race pace they have over 70 laps,” Sainz admitted. “It’s 71 laps tomorrow and given the race pace, at one point or another he’s going to have a chance at overtaking us and I think it’s up to us how we manage the strategy and the situation to try and keep him behind.”

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Qualifying times in full

P.	Driver	Team	Q1	Q2 (v Q1)	Q3 (v Q2)
1	Charles Leclerc	Ferrari	1’18.401	1’17.901 (-0.500s)	1’17.166 (-0.735s)
2	Carlos Sainz Jnr	Ferrari	1’18.755	1’18.382 (-0.373s)	1’17.233 (-1.149s)
3	Max Verstappen	Red Bull	1’18.099	1’17.625 (-0.474s)	1’17.263 (-0.362s)
4	Daniel Ricciardo	AlphaTauri	1’18.341	1’17.706 (-0.635s)	1’17.382 (-0.324s)
5	Sergio Perez	Red Bull	1’18.553	1’18.124 (-0.429s)	1’17.423 (-0.701s)
6	Lewis Hamilton	Mercedes	1’18.677	1’17.571 (-1.106s)	1’17.454 (-0.117s)
7	Oscar Piastri	McLaren	1’18.241	1’17.874 (-0.367s)	1’17.623 (-0.251s)
8	George Russell	Mercedes	1’18.893	1’17.673 (-1.220s)	1’17.674 (+0.001s)
9	Valtteri Bottas	Alfa Romeo	1’18.429	1’18.016 (-0.413s)	1’18.032 (+0.016s)
10	Zhou Guanyu	Alfa Romeo	1’19.016	1’18.440 (-0.576s)	1’18.050 (-0.390s)
11	Pierre Gasly	Alpine	1’18.945	1’18.521 (-0.424s)	Missed by 0.081s
12	Nico Hulkenberg	Haas	1’18.969	1’18.524 (-0.445s)	Missed by 0.084s
13	Fernando Alonso	Aston Martin	1’18.848	1’18.738 (-0.110s)	Missed by 0.298s
14	Alexander Albon	Williams	1’18.828	1’19.147 (+0.319s)	Missed by 0.707s
15	Yuki Tsunoda	AlphaTauri	1’18.890
16	Esteban Ocon	Alpine	1’19.080	Missed by 0.064s
17	Kevin Magnussen	Haas	1’19.163	Missed by 0.147s
18	Lance Stroll	Aston Martin	1’19.227	Missed by 0.211s
19	Lando Norris	McLaren	1’21.554	Missed by 2.538s
20	Logan Sargeant	Williams

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Sector times

P.	#	Driver	S1	S2	S3	Ultimate lap (deficit)
1	16	Charles Leclerc	27.291 (1)	29.853 (3)	20.022 (5)	1’17.166
2	1	Max Verstappen	27.369 (3)	29.818 (1)	20.037 (6)	1’17.224 (+0.039)
3	55	Carlos Sainz Jnr	27.344 (2)	29.9 (6)	19.989 (3)	1’17.233
4	3	Daniel Ricciardo	27.492 (8)	29.846 (2)	19.937 (1)	1’17.275 (+0.107)
5	44	Lewis Hamilton	27.46 (5)	29.868 (4)	20.015 (4)	1’17.343 (+0.111)
6	11	Sergio Perez	27.46 (5)	29.884 (5)	20.079 (7)	1’17.423
7	63	George Russell	27.549 (9)	29.92 (7)	19.973 (2)	1’17.442 (+0.231)
8	81	Oscar Piastri	27.447 (4)	29.979 (8)	20.126 (8)	1’17.552 (+0.071)
9	77	Valtteri Bottas	27.483 (7)	30.073 (9)	20.167 (9)	1’17.723 (+0.293)
10	24	Zhou Guanyu	27.67 (13)	30.115 (10)	20.265 (10)	1’18.050
11	23	Alexander Albon	27.599 (11)	30.318 (12)	20.381 (14)	1’18.298 (+0.530)
12	14	Fernando Alonso	27.691 (16)	30.423 (14)	20.324 (12)	1’18.438 (+0.300)
13	22	Yuki Tsunoda	27.825 (19)	30.256 (11)	20.435 (15)	1’18.516 (+0.374)
14	27	Nico Hulkenberg	27.68 (14)	30.563 (18)	20.278 (11)	1’18.521 (+0.003)
15	10	Pierre Gasly	27.774 (18)	30.39 (13)	20.357 (13)	1’18.521
16	18	Lance Stroll	27.746 (17)	30.499 (16)	20.728 (18)	1’18.973 (+0.254)
17	20	Kevin Magnussen	27.68 (14)	30.728 (19)	20.585 (17)	1’18.993 (+0.170)
18	31	Esteban Ocon	28.038 (20)	30.5 (17)	20.524 (16)	1’19.062 (+0.018)
19	2	Logan Sargeant	27.567 (10)	30.91 (20)	21.152 (19)	1’19.629
20	4	Lando Norris	27.653 (12)	30.444 (15)	23.457 (20)	1’21.554

Speed trap

P.	#	Driver	Car	Engine	Model	Max kph (mph)
1	3	Daniel Ricciardo	AlphaTauri	Honda RBPT	AT04	353.8 (219.8)
2	27	Nico Hulkenberg	Haas	Ferrari	VF-23	352.2 (218.8)
3	20	Kevin Magnussen	Haas	Ferrari	VF-23	352.0 (218.7)
4	11	Sergio Perez	Red Bull	Honda RBPT	RB19	351.2 (218.2)
5	16	Charles Leclerc	Ferrari	Ferrari	SF-23	350.7 (217.9)
6	1	Max Verstappen	Red Bull	Honda RBPT	RB19	349.9 (217.4)
7	81	Oscar Piastri	McLaren	Mercedes	MCL60	348.8 (216.7)
8	55	Carlos Sainz Jnr	Ferrari	Ferrari	SF-23	348.7 (216.7)
9	2	Logan Sargeant	Williams	Mercedes	FW45	348.0 (216.2)
10	18	Lance Stroll	Aston Martin	Mercedes	AMR23	347.8 (216.1)
11	77	Valtteri Bottas	Alfa Romeo	Ferrari	C43	347.3 (215.8)
12	23	Alexander Albon	Williams	Mercedes	FW45	347.2 (215.7)
13	4	Lando Norris	McLaren	Mercedes	MCL60	347.1 (215.7)
14	24	Zhou Guanyu	Alfa Romeo	Ferrari	C43	347.0 (215.6)
15	14	Fernando Alonso	Aston Martin	Mercedes	AMR23	345.1 (214.4)
16	44	Lewis Hamilton	Mercedes	Mercedes	W14	345.1 (214.4)
17	63	George Russell	Mercedes	Mercedes	W14	345.0 (214.4)
18	10	Pierre Gasly	Alpine	Renault	A523	343.2 (213.3)
19	31	Esteban Ocon	Alpine	Renault	A523	343.0 (213.1)
20	22	Yuki Tsunoda	AlphaTauri	Honda RBPT	AT04	342.2 (212.6)

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Over to you

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