F1 Mexican GP: What We Learned From Drivers' Complaints About Their Cars

An eventful Mexican Grand Prix saw Max Verstappen stand on the top step of the podium, with the spotlight still shining brightly on Kimi Antonelli, who became the youngest F1 World Champion.

Moreover, most (emphasis on this word) of the front-running teams came away impressed with their cars' pace. But while all that was happening, the other side of the grid went through car performance issues that affected their race. 

Here's what we learned:

George Russell started on second alongside Lewis Hamilton in the front row, but he lost places in the long straight into Turn 1. The Mercedes driver tumbled to sixth after Turn 1, made contact with Red Bull's Isack Hadjar, and received a 10-second penalty for that collision. 

Russell, who witnessed his teammate clinch the season championship, said that a deployment issue compromised him in that chaotic start.

Russell: "I made a good start and was in a strong position, but then we suffered an issue which caused me to not have full deployment down the straight. That cost us a lot of positions and ultimately took us out of contention for a strong result. It’s frustrating to have the race compromised by something outside of my control, but that is racing."

Charles Leclerc's wheel-to-wheel battle with Lewis Hamilton drew the ire of Ferrari fans, an incident that he has already apologized for. He dropped to second place behind Verstappen after serving his five-second penalty, then tumbled to fourth after getting overtaken by Hamilton and Antonelli in a standing restart.

Leclerc said that he locked up during the restart, which caused a flat spot on his tyre for the rest of the race. It made it difficult for him to get back to the podium places.  

Leclerc: "After the restart, on the dirty side of the track, I struggled, and then had a flat spot which made it really tough to fight off Lando Norris for the rest of the race. We will learn from it and come back stronger as a team."

McLaren's Oscar Piastri made contact with Racing Bulls' Arvid Lindblad with a little more than 10 laps remaining in the race. The collision took Lindblad out, while Piastri sustained some damage on his car.

Piastri was able to drag his car to P7, but a post-race 10-second penalty for causing the collision dropped him to P13. 

Piastri: "Despite the damage picked up towards the end, we carried on through the final laps and still had enough pace to hang on, even if the last stint wasn’t easy. It’s disappointing not to come away with the points for P7 following the racing incident ruling against us, but we’ll use that as motivation to fight at the front in Brazil next week."

Alpine's Pierre Gasly started ahead of his teammate Franco Colapinto, but he experienced power issues that affected him during the race's restarts. The Alpine drivers managed to cross the line in the Top 10, but both of them received hefty yellow flag infringements that dropped them out of the points. 

Gasly said that the team needs to fix these power issues for this weekend's race in Brazil.

Gasly: "In terms of the race, I had a really good launch off the line but then lost power on the straight, which cost us a number of places and left us to play catch-up in the midfield. We were back in the mix after the red flag, fighting for the points, but again we had some power issues at the restarts and that put us back too much meaning we could not really compete further up the field."

The race ended abruptly for the Aston Martin garage, as power unit issues forced Fernando Alonso and Lance Stroll to retire early. Reliability again hounds both Aston Martin drivers, although Alonso remained optimistic about the team's learning curve. 

Alonso: "We knew it was going to be tough, but having to retire the car so early is disappointing. The same MGUK issue that stopped us in Qualifying reoccurred and forced us to stop. Days like today bring hard lessons, but we are learning."

Cadillac's Valtteri Bottas crashed heavily into the barriers after his car suffered a suspension failure. It triggered a Red Flag, although the F1 community was relieved to see Bottas walk on his own after that very heavy crash.

Bottas: "We need to work through everything thoroughly as a team to understand exactly what happened and make sure we learn from it. We had a strong opening lap and made up some places, so it’s disappointing not to finish another race."