Parc Ferme: Mexico... Ay Caramba!

After another poor qualifying, Mexico's hero Sergio Perez needed to pull out the stops if he was going to have a shot at winning his home race. Adopting the strategy of “Go big or go home”, he settled on the Hacienda after he and his teammate made a Charles Leclerc taco entering Turn 1.

Proving that two’s company and three’s a crowd, Checo ended up being the third wheel, launching himself of Leclerc's front wheel and into the gravel. The Mexican blamed himself for the incident; unfortunately, the partisan crowd didn’t.

This resulted in boos for Leclerc and a leathering for some poor Ferrari shirt wearer who probably suggested Perez’s move was a tad optimistic.

Following the Red Flag after Kevin Magnussen’s accident in Mexico, the Race Director ordered a standing re-start. This put a spanner in the works for tyres. Whilst many opted for Hards, a few, like Mercedes, went Mediums.

This worked out well for Lewis Hamilton. In a Nigel Mansell-style move, he quickly got his overtaking job done, taking second from Leclerc. Pulling away from the hard tyre-shod Ferrari, Hamilton had oodles of clean air between him and the next car to manage his softer rubber and brakes.

Not known for its passing opportunities, the Autódromo Hermanos delivered more than its fair share, much of it courtesy of McLaren’s Lando Norris. Having fluffed his qualifying, he had to suffer the double ignominy of starting at the back of the grid while his rookie teammate rocked up at the other end.

Possibly fired up from the embarrassment, he then set about climbing from 17th to finish fifth at the end of the race, entertaining us along the way.

This was no mean feat as it required both cojones and brains to manage the circuit's “keeping the brakes cool and the tyres hot” challenge. Something George Russell didn’t figure out in his pursuit of Carlos Sainz.

Filling in for Checo as the crowd’s adopted son, the hard-tried Sainz consigned the medium-rubbered Russell to a view of his exhaust pipe.

After an extended period of fruitless feints and looking down the inside, George eventually had to cool his brakes, and in doing so, his tyres fell out of their window. This left him drifting towards the clutches of Norris.

Probably the biggest surprise in on Saturday, was Ferrari, for both team and fans alike. Doing well and not knowing why is only marginally better than doing badly and understanding the problem.

It is also a cruel state of affairs when you can put your cars on the front row of the grid in the expectation that you’re only going to go backwards in the race. Maybe Ferrari can find something in their post-race analysis to carry forward.

Viva Sao Paulo and Viva Las Vegas!