Carlos Sainz claimed his second victory of 2024 at the Mexican Grand Prix with a commanding drive, as Lando Norris finished second and Max Verstappen sixth after a 20-second penalty.
The Spaniard reclaimed first place after losing it into the opening corner and never conceded it thereafter; he built an unassailable lead which soaked up the potential of any threat from Norris in the closing stages once the McLaren driver cleared Charles Leclerc.
Sainz spent two laps sat in Verstappen’s wheel tracks before gathering enough pace to mount an overtake into Turn 1 with DRS and then covered off a potential switchback into the following corners.
This put Verstappen in Norris’ clutches, and the McLaren driver’s bid to pass around the outside into Turn 4 was once again met with Verstappen taking him off the road.
Like at Austin, Norris had laid claim to the position, but Verstappen then lunged down the inside at Turn 7 and took both drivers off once more – and got ahead of Norris off the road. Both incidents resulted in 10-second penalties for Verstappen, which sent him further down the order and took him out of the lead fight.
Leclerc capitalised on the skirmish between the two championship leaders, bursting into second place.
Sainz stabilised at over five seconds, but Leclerc’s tyres then started to run out of life and he started to fall into Norris’ orbit – when the Briton closed into DRS range at the end of lap 62, Leclerc subsequently drifted wide out of the Peraltada and almost hit the wall.
Leclerc saved the snap of oversteer, but couldn’t stop Norris from breaking past. Norris subsequently started to catch Sainz, but could only get within 4.7 seconds at the flag.
With a free pitstop thanks to a 30-second gap to the Mercedes duo behind, Leclerc pitted for soft tyres at the end to clinch the point for fastest lap, which he duly collected with a 1m18.336s effort to help Ferrari’s constructors’ championship bid.
Lewis Hamilton finished fourth after a lengthy battle with George Russell, one in which Hamilton’s myriad efforts to pass were rebuffed by his Mercedes team-mate.
Verstappen shook out in sixth place, albeit 11 seconds down on Russell, having struggled for pace on the hard tyre; the Dutchman was being slowly reeled in by an impressive Kevin Magnussen, who locked down seventh over a recovering Oscar Piastri.
Nico Hulkenberg’s pace tailed off at the end of the race but he nonetheless did enough to hold onto ninth, with Pierre Gasly clinching the final point for Alpine.
