It was indeed an exhilarating closure to the Mexican Grand Prix, with Max Verstappen securing a dominant F1 victory while Lewis Hamilton had to spend every ounce of his energy to keep the fan-driven Mexican, Sergio Perez, at bay and clinch P2 for Mercedes.

And down the order in P15 stood a broken Valtteri Bottas; Pretty much nothing went his way right from the getaway. It all started with Daniel Ricciardo’s crash around turn 1 followed by an unusually poor Mercedes pit stop and ended with the task of stealing Verstappen’s fastest lap point.

Hence, Hamilton was almost Mercedes’ lone warrior on Sunday. And he stands tall as the reason why Mercedes are still leading the constructor’s championship; the difference between Mercedes and Red Bull being a mere point.

But, the 7-time world champion ended up losing further grip on Verstappen in the driver’s standings, and it looks like the Dutchman is running away with the title. As of the Mexican GP, 19 points separate the duo in the driver’s standings.

Changes in the driver’s and constructor’s standings

The Mexican GP triggered a couple of swaps in driver’s and constructor’s standings. Let’s start with the one in the driver’s championship. Kimi Raikkonen managed to leap ahead of Nicholas Latifi into P16 after collecting strong 4 points out of the weekend.

In the constructor’s championship, Ferrari managed to gain a position on McLaren after trailing the British outfit over most parts of the season. Charles Leclerc and Carlos Sainz delivered a solid 18 points to Ferrari’s tally. Contrastingly, McLaren endured an awful weekend, as they could only garner 1 point from Lando Norris’ P10 finish.

Hence, Ferrari now steer 10.5 points clear of McLaren and are likely to sustain this gap until the very end of the season.

Updated F1 drivers’ standings

1. Max Verstappen – 312.5
2. Lewis Hamilton – 293.5
3. Valtteri Bottas – 185
4. Sergio Perez – 165
5. Lando Norris – 150
6. Charles Leclerc – 138
7. Carlos Sainz – 130.5
8. Daniel Ricciardo – 105
9. Pierre Gasly – 86
10. Fernando Alonso – 60
11. Esteban Ocon – 46
12. Sebastian Vettel – 42
13. Lance Stroll – 26
14. Yuki Tsunoda – 20
15. George Russell – 16
16. Kimi Raikkonen – 10
17. Nicholas Latifi – 7
18. Antonio Giovinazzi – 1
19. Mick Schumacher – 0
20. Nikita Mazepin – 0

Updated F1 constructors’ standings

1. Mercedes AMG (Mercedes) – 478.5
2. Red Bull Racing (Honda) – 477.5
3. Scuderia Ferrari (Ferrari) – 265.5
4. McLaren (Mercedes) – 255
5. Alpine (Renault) – 104
6. Scuderia AlphaTauri (Honda) – 106
7. Aston Martin Racing (Mercedes) – 68
8. Williams (Mercedes) – 23
9. Alfa Romeo Racing (Ferrari) – 11

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