Mercedes may have sealed the constructors’ championship back in Suzuka, but a huge challenge awaits them in the upcoming Mexican Grand Prix on Monday.
Points leader Lewis Hamilton will try to bring one home for his team and for himself as he aims for his sixth World Championship in Mexico City. He is within striking distance to become the second-most decorated driver in F1 history, inching closer with global icon Michael Schumacher who has seven under his belt.
The Briton driver still leads the F1 standings with 338 points, and the second leading scorer is his Mercedes teammate Valtteri Bottas who is behind by 64 points with 274.
However, many pundits don’t expect the Silver Arrows to win in this one given their history at the Autodromo Hermanos Rodriguez, opening up opportunities for others drivers to swoop in and bring home the title.
“We know that the four remaining races are not going to be easy and we expect Mexico to be the most difficult one for us,” said Mercedes boss Toto Wolff in a recent interview.
We are excited to see how all of these will unfold in Mexico City. But first, SBOBET will offer you some talking points ahead on Monday.
Renault’s unfortunate disqualification in Suzuka
Renault were at the wrong end of the Mexican Grand Prix 2019 news when they were disqualified from the results of the Japanese Grand Prix due to a breach of the Sporting and Technical Regulations and the FIA International Sporting Code, cited by Racing Point.
Racing Point pointed out that the Renault drivers were using a “pre-set, automated brake bias system” which could be seen on the onboard camera footage that the brake balance was displayed on the Renault steering wheels even without the driver’s input.
The disqualification meant that Racing Point’s Lance Stroll and Toro Rosso’s Daniil Kvyat will move up to ninth and tenth respectively and the said teams move to within striking distance of Renault for P5 in the constructors’ standings.
Renault drivers Nico Hulkenburg and Daniel Ricciardo seemed unperturbed, however, as they shrugged off any negative effects of the disqualification. They both believe that this news won’t affect their competitiveness ahead in Mexico.
“I don’t think it’s something that is going to strongly affect our competitiveness on the track, so in that respect I am calm,” said Hulkenberg.
Red Bull shrug off complacency
Red Bull were dubbed as one of the favourites on Monday as they’ve won the last two Mexican Grand Prix race care of Max Verstappen. The Belgian-Dutch racer rose to the podium despite not having the pole position in those two years.
Alex Albon, who achieved his best finish of the season by placing fourth in Suzuka, shrugged off the “favourites” tag as he believes that it will get harder this time around. He mentioned that other constructors particularly the Prancing Horse will probably have the advantage.
“Yeah, we’ll see. Maybe we are not favourites as we were in previous years. Yeah, we have our success here, but Ferrari are looking very strong as always,”said Albon.
Max Verstappen echoed his teammate’s thoughts when asked about this year’s Mexican Grand Prix. However, he believes that his car can keep up with Ferrari and Mercedes, especially after changing their engine from Renault to a Honda-powered one.
“This year, from the Honda side, we don’t know how competitive it is going to be,” said Verstappen.
“This year will be a bit more difficult because I think in comparison to Mercedes and Ferrari we are not maybe that far ahead with the car. Still there is a difference but not that big, so maybe in the race, we’ll have a few more chances,”he added.
Ferrari are the hot favourites
The consensus in Mexico City is that the Prancing Horse are the heavy favourites for the race next week, thanks to their recent updates of their power unit and aerodynamic packages to their cars, and their competitors in Mercedes agree.
“We’re going to go into this weekend knowing that Ferrari are massively quick, usually on the straights, and obviously straights are a powerful element of this circuit, so I don’t know when we’ll be getting another pole – unless it rains, which can change everything,” bared Lewis Hamilton.
While the Autodromo Hermanos Rodriguez have the straight paths that would give Ferrari an advantage, Sebastian Vettel cited that the track also has some tricky “cornery” sections, and they’ll have to work on those if ever they’ll bring home the title.
“Obviously people look at the track and they look at the straight line but I think that, yeah, we have obviously been strong on the straight lines in recent races but there are a couple of corners plus here it’s not one of the tracks where efficiency matters so much,”said Vettel.
“We’ll see how we manage around the ‘cornery’ sections, because some of these type of corners have been our weakness, so we’ll see,” he added.
What are the odds?
Clearly, it’s going down between Ferrari and Red Bull. But the Mexican Grand Prix 2019 odds slightly favour Ferrari as they’re pegged at 1.40 odds to win while Red Bull are at 2.72 in the Asian Handicap Market.
On the other hand, it would be unwise to overlook Mercedes either, as they still have the likes of Valtteri Bottas and Lewis Hamilton who are lurking in the shadows to try and steal a win.
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