Talk about stealing someone's thunder. Few were talking about the battle for the Formula 1 World Championship still being alive after Mercedes AMG F1's Lewis Hamilton won the Mexico Grand Prix to reduce the points gap to teammate Nico Rosberg to 19 points with two rounds to go. Some talked about the defending world champion tying Alain Prost as the second most winningest driver in F1 history with 51 wins. But everyone was talking about Ferrari's Sebastian Vettel tangling and battling with Red Bull Racing's Max Verstappen and Daniel Ricciardo in a scrappy and acrimonious battle late in the race that spilled over into the post-race podium ceremony. And then for good measure, went on even after the podium ceremony.
The chaos ensued at the start itself when pole-sitter Lewis Hamilton, in his attempt to stay ahead of Rosberg who was second on the grid, locked up at the first corner and went way off into the run-off area and gained a huge advantage ahead of the German. Rosberg also went briefly off the track, but to a far lesser extent as he was muscled off by Verstappen.
Surprisingly, Hamilton was not penalized for gaining an advantage by going off but the stewards were kept very busy later in the race.
Rosberg managed to stay in second and admitted that he didn't have the pace to stay with Hamilton but had to stay on his toes to keep the second place he needed to keep his mathematical chances of winning the championship alive. A mistake on lap 50 of the 71-lap race around the 17-turn, 4.304km circuit briefly looked like it would cost the German.
But he was able to recover and stay second while an all-out war ensued between Vettel, Ricciardo and Verstappen.
The Dutchman's off-track excursion on lap 68 while trying to stay ahead of Vettel drew the ire of the former four-time F1 champion who went on a profanity laced tirade over the radio with the Ferrari pitwall, even going so far as to abuse the FIA race director Charlie Whiting for not ordering Verstappen to surrender third place to him.
Verstappen was handed a five-second time penalty just before he took to the podium, though, and as a result was pushed down to fifth with the Ferrari driver promoted to third.
Red Bull Racing went to see the race director and stewards following that, however, and were able to successfully argue that Vettel had moved under braking on lap 69 while Ricciardo tried to pass him on the inside.
That demoted Vettel to fifth place behind Verstappen, who was now fourth, and Ricciardo who was now on the podium.
Behind the top five, the second Ferrari of Kimi Raikkonen was way back in a lonely sixth place ahead of Force India-Mercedes' Nico Hulkenberg, the Williams-Mercedes of Valtteri Bottas and Felipe Massa and the second Force India-Mercedes of Sergio Perez.
The fight for the F1 drivers' championship now shifts to Sao Paulo for the Brazilian Grand Prix on November 13, the penultimate round of the season that will conclude with the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix on November 27.
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