Mercedes milestone at Mexico Grand Prix

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Mercedes got the front-row lockout for the commencement of the Mexico City Grand Prix. The situation volition beryllium holding disconnected the hard-charging Red Bulls and Max Verstappen implicit 71 laps connected Sunday.

Valtteri Bottas and Lewis Hamilton seized connected what Verstappen called a "terrible" qualifying for Red Bull connected Saturday to gain Mercedes its archetypal 1-2 commencement of the season. Bottas starts from rod presumption and, astir critically, Hamilton gets an aboriginal contention vantage implicit Verstappen successful their combat for the play championship.

Verstappen leads Hamilton by 12 points with 5 races to spell successful Formula One's champion operator duel successful years.

"It's a existent astonishment and a daze to america to spot we're connected the beforehand row," Hamilton said. "I don't truly person an reply for it, but I'll instrumentality it for sure. Really grateful to beryllium up determination with Valtteri."

Shock indeed. The precocious altitude of Mexico City was expected to marque the Autodromo Hermanos Rodriguez Red Bull territory, and Verstappen and teammate Sergio Perez looked beardown successful signifier and the archetypal 2 stages of qualifying. So overmuch truthful that adjacent Hamilton seemed unsure however Mercedes would clasp the pb Sunday.

But if they can, the British operator could instrumentality a large chunk retired of Verstappen's pb successful the championship.

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"All our results (over practice) person shown that we're behind," successful contention trim, Hamilton said. "So who knows? We'll enactment arsenic a squad to effort and conflict them and support it."

Verstappen is chasing his archetypal vocation championship, and Hamilton his eighth, which would beryllium an Formula 1 record.

Verstappen teammate Sergio Perez volition commencement fourth, a disappointing effect successful beforehand of a location assemblage of much than 100,000 that loudly cheered his each lap. The lone Mexican operator successful F1, Perez is adored successful Mexico City and expected to person a realistic accidental astatine rod position, and perchance adjacent a contention victory.

Red Bull had faced questions this week whether Perez would beryllium told to fto Verstappen walk him successful the race, adjacent if it meant perchance giving up a victory, successful bid to assistance Verstappen successful the championship.

The archetypal precedence of squad strategy present volition beryllium however to enactment unneurotic to walk Mercedes.

Asked if the chatter astir Red Bull's dominance motivated Mercedes, Bottas and Hamilton said it wasn't a origin successful qualifying.

"We didn't adjacent cognize that was happening," Hamilton said.

Verstappen blamed the qualifying struggles connected mediocre tyre grip successful the past league and an incidental up of him erstwhile Alpha Tauri operator Yuki Tsunoda ran disconnected the way and interfered with Perez, which forced Perez to bail retired of a country tally disconnected the way with Verstappen coming up quickly.

"I don't cognize what happened successful beforehand of me. I conscionable saw a batch of dust, I thought a car crashed," Verstappen said. "I backed retired of it a bit. No yellowish emblem came, truthful I continued pushing but I was fundamentally finished. I privation to look astatine what happened there."

He had to beryllium cautious and dilatory down, having been stripped of rod presumption successful 2019 erstwhile helium ignored yellow-flag warnings aft Bottas crashed. It outgo him dearly arsenic Hamilton went connected to win.

Verstappen won successful 2017 and 2018, and some victories came from rod position.

Verstappen besides took the United States Grand Prix 2 weeks agone to agelong his title pb connected a way that was expected to favour Mercedes. Hamilton tin present instrumentality the favour to support Verstappen successful show successful the rubric chase.

"Not a large spot to be," astatine the start, Verstappen said. "Let's see. It's a agelong race."

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