Every season, Mexico City’s high altitude and the unique characteristics of the Autodromo Hermanos Rodriguez circuit present F1 teams with a different set of challenges.
With the race scheduled towards the end of the season, bringing technical upgrades to the cars can appear to be obsolete. But for the teams that do manage to get it right, there are valuable points to be gained over the opposition.
Although Red Bull has dominated the 2023 season, winning both the drivers' and constructors’ championship with many races left on the calendar, there’s still a huge battle raging behind for the rest of the teams that’s likely to go down to the wire.
This year, Mexico proved to be a crucial factor in shaking up the bottom-tier teams, who are all fighting for their highest spot to earn the most prize money available in the constructors’ championship.
The lack of pace AlphaTauri has faced all season long with its AT04, and distracting driver changes, put it last in the constructors’ points going into Mexico – but the Faenza team’s consistent hard work to add performance has finally paid off.
It kept up the momentum from securing points in the previous race at Austin’s Circuit of the Americas, and then Daniel Ricciardo’s fine performance in Mexico meant it leapfrogged from last place to eighth in the championship – tied on 16 points with Alfa Romeo.
Chief race engineer Jonathan Eddolls believes that end-of-season updates on the AT04 have been key and hopes to close the gap to seventh-placed Williams with the remaining three races left on the schedule.
“With today’s result, we’re equal on points with Alfa Romeo, but ahead of them in the championship, and clearly, closing the gap to Williams ahead,” he said. “The car is looking fast, and the updates are working, so we look ahead to close that gap over the coming races.”
Although he lost two spots in the race from his stellar P4 grid position, Daniel Ricciardo was pleased to secure a vital six points for his team – especially in light of team-mate Yuki Tsunoda’s clash with McLaren’s Oscar Piastri.
“We got very close to George [Russell] at the end,” Ricciardo told Motorsport.com. “To come out with seventh, and six points [which was] nearly eight points, I think, big picture, we have to be very happy.”
AlphaTauri now trails Williams by 12 points, and when Ricciardo was asked about the team’s chances of catching the UK-based team, he remained hopeful but realistic.
“I think if, I mean, if this weekend [form] continues, absolutely,” he said. “It's hard to know. I mean, Brazil is a very different track but it's similar.
“You’ve still got altitude, you still run pretty high downforce so maybe it could help us. Let's see [in] Vegas, we’ve got to be a little more slippery [for its straights] than what we normally are.”
Williams hanging on to retain seventh
Williams ended 2022 well adrift in last place in the constructors’ battle. So far this season, it’s been one of the teams that has shown the most improvements.
Both Alex Albon and Logan Sargeant enjoyed strong results during free practice sessions in Mexico; Albon even managed P2 in FP1 and FP3.
But in qualifying, it missed out on its target of Q3. While Albon managed to finish the race ninth for two points, this meant the points gap to the chasing AlphaTauri and Alfa was only slightly extended at a track where it was expected to shine.
Albon acknowledged AlphaTauri’s race pace and admitted he was worried about its sudden progress: “Daniel’s face is something to be a bit worried about, because if they have a double points finish, which they should have had, they only need another finish like that to be extra stellar.
“[We] still need to keep our heads down and try to finish off the year strong.”
Williams, undoubtedly, has the most to lose among the bottom-tier teams in the closing races.
Alfa Romeo left points on the table
Both Alfa drivers qualified in the top 10 in Mexico but a lack of race pace played into AlphaTauri’s hands and allowed it to tie its tally in the constructors' standings. Valtteri Bottas qualified P9, ahead of team-mate Zhou Guanyu, but only managed to finish the race in P15, while Zhou finished a spot ahead of him.
“We definitely had better pace, like I think today didn't really reflect what we could have had,” said Bottas. “But [qualifying] was strong in terms of compared to other races. So hopefully, we get the same trend in Brazil.”
But at least Alfa had something to be positive about. Even putting Kevin Magnussen’s suspension failure and crash aside, Haas’ lack of race pace and performance throughout the Mexico Grand Prix weekend was a big worry.
With zero points gained since Singapore, Haas is now firmly bottom of the pile – four points off AlphaTauri and Alfa.
Vegas: A wild card for the fight?
With three races left on the F1 calendar, the Las Vegas Grand Prix has the most potential to shake things up amongst these bottom-tier F1 teams.
The highly-anticipated ‘Sin City’ street race will offer new challenges, since it’s the first time that teams will drive on the new track – aside from the simulator work done by the drivers.
Lots of money is at stake for the bottom teams, with tens of millions on offer for each spot in the constructors’ table. This could be the right place for one of them to bet the farm, and go all-in…
