Red Bull is plummeting in the 2024 F1 championship. Carlos Sainz won in Mexico. The Spaniard delivered a flawless weekend, repeatedly expressing his determination to win. Charles Leclerc completed the Mexican podium, finishing third. This result likely didn’t satisfy the Monegasque, who never seemed to find the same connection with the SF-24 as his teammate. Skipping FP1 and dedicating FP2 to Pirelli testing didn’t help Charles with his setup preparation.
Lando Norris came between the two Ferrari drivers. The British driver had an excellent second half of the race on Hard tires, posting the fastest lap times, while in the first stint he was stuck fighting with Verstappen, which cost him a lot of time. After surviving a double wheel-to-wheel battle with the three-time world champion, the McLaren driver cautiously waited for the Dutchman to pit before trying to overtake. From there, he staged a comeback, finishing only five seconds behind Sainz.
F1, Red Bull: A Pointless Block on Lando Norris
In the first stint, Ferrari reaffirmed its strong race pace seen on Friday. After just a few laps, Charles Leclerc and Carlos Sainz secured the top two positions, setting a pace that was unsustainable for their competitors. Specifically, the two Maranello drivers were lapping about half a second faster than Max Verstappen. On medium tires, Carlos was the most consistent, never exceeding a lap time of 1:22.0. The Spaniard managed his tires perfectly, with less degradation than his teammate.
The race winner maintained lap times ranging from 1:21.4 to 1:22.0, taking full advantage of clean air to manage temperatures. The excellent pace on the medium compounds further highlighted the impact of the updates introduced by the Italian F1 team. The SF-24 has become highly efficient at managing tires with a heavy fuel load, allowing its drivers to push harder. According to telemetry data, the two Ferraris particularly stood out in traction when exiting the slow corners in Sector 3.
Most of the radio instructions went to Leclerc. His engineer, Bryan Bozzi, repeatedly advised him to lift and coast more to allow him to push without limits in the race’s final stages. Behind the two Ferraris, Norris had a slightly faster pace than the world champion. However, Lando refrained from attacking, aware of the penalty given to Verstappen. The British driver avoided further close battles, but staying behind the Dutchman cost him too much time.
This prevented him from closing in on the Ferraris in the final part of the race. Around lap 18, Max began losing performance, also reporting tire management issues over the radio. The Hasselt driver struggled, particularly on the second straight and in the track’s slower sections. Max Verstappen radioed complaints about the hybrid system, which was slowing him down on the straights. Additionally, throughout the F1 weekend, the RB20 suffered from poor rotation in the slow corners, resulting in reduced mid-corner speed and a delayed throttle application on exit.
F1, Red Bull’s Embarrassing Second Stint in Mexico
In the second stint, the top teams opted to complete the race on Hard tires. Leading the race, Sainz comfortably managed his stint due to his significant lead. This allowed him to extend the life of his tires, gradually easing into their hysteresis cycle. As the degradation graph shows, Carlos Sainz had the best tire wear among the top three, improving his lap times as the car’s weight decreased. Charles Leclerc, however, began pushing immediately after his pit stop, hampered by a poor warm-up phase.
The Monegasque was repeatedly reminded by his engineer not to be too aggressive on his tires to extend their useful life. Charles had to push to maintain the gap with Norris, which led to graining that slowed him down in the final part of the race. Lando took advantage of this performance drop and some well-timed blue flags, easily closing in on the Ferrari. The Englishman was the fastest on Hard tires, maintaining a pace about two-tenths faster than Carlos Sainz and four-tenths faster than Charles Leclerc, making a significant difference in Sector 2.
In Sector 2, he was 6 km/h faster than the Ferraris from Turns 7 to 11. Additionally, the effective hybrid strategy helped close the speed gap with the Ferraris on the straights. The McLaren driver was only 2 km/h slower before braking at Turns 1 and 3. Mercedes was busy with an internal battle, with Hamilton eventually overtaking his teammate after multiple attempts. This extended skirmish slowed down the silver cars, which trailed Norris by almost a second. The German team seems unable to recover from this period.
The reason lies in their limited understanding of updates and recurring incidents forcing them to use older specifications. But the most concerning data point concerns Red Bull. In the second stint, analysis of Max Verstappen’s race pace revealed that his RB20 was so slow that, comparing his pace to Kevin Magnussen’s Haas, the Dane was on average a tenth faster. A troubling sign for Max, who’s fighting alone against everyone. If this is his car’s pace in the coming races, defending the drivers’ title won’t be easy.
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