2019 Mexican GP: Race pace (Midfield teams)

The image shown above is a vector. You can zoom in as much as you want to see in which lap was each individual time done.

If a driver is not in the chart, it is because he did not finish the race, therefore his pace is not really comparable to the pace of the rest of the drivers.

Analysis

McLaren

A poor race for the high flying British team. Carlos Sainz looked strong during the quali session, but couldn’t find the pace on Sunday. The Spaniard finished in 13th place with an average race pace of 1:22.069 seconds per lap.

Lando Norris was massively unlucky after the atrocious pit stop that costed him over two minutes in the pit lane. The young rookie kept going, waiting for a safety car, but that never happened. McLaren decided to retire the car after a misserable 48 laps.

Racing Point

Sergio Pérez keeps showing his strong pace after the summer break. Racing at home, Checo put on a show for the fans. The Mexican driver finished in 7th place, managing to keep a pacy Daniel Ricciardo behind with a good defense in turn 1. Checo was the fastest midfield driver on Sunday, with an average lap time of 1:21.805.

Lance Stroll continues to struggle, and was outside of the points once again. Lance was among the slowest drivers of the day, only outpacing the two Haas and Williams drivers. By the end of the race, his average lap time of 1:22.399 was 6 tenths per lap slower than Sergio’s.

Renault

A mixed day for Renault. Daniel Ricciardo underperformed on Saturday, but came back with a vengeance on Sunday afternoon. Danny Ric did a massive first stint of 50 laps with the hard tires, and was looking as a strong candidate to obtain 7th place. Daniel had tires that were 30 laps fresher than Sergio, but could not manage to overtake the home driver. Overall, a good day for the Aussie.

Nico Hulkenberg managed to take home the final point of the race after Kvyat’s 10 second penalty. Nico did not have the same pace that Daniel had with the hard compound, but still managed to run a decent race. Comparing him to his teammate, his average lap time of 1:22

Toro Rosso

Another strong performance from the Italian team. Toro Rosso foumnd the pace once again in México, and while they would have wanted to get more poitns in the process, their season has been encouraging so far.

Daniil Kvyat and Pierre Gasly were both among the fastest midfield drivers of the race, and were separated by only half a tenth per lap. Daniil thought he had some points in the bag, before receiving a ten second penalty that demoted him to 11th place. Gasly moved up to 9th place in the process, and keeps showing his talent in the STR14.

Alfa Romeo

More misery for Alfa Romeo. A team that was poised to do great things during the season has been relegated once again to the pointless positions.

Kimi Rakkonen retired after 58 laps, while Antonio Giovinazzi finished in a dissapointing 14th place. Gio’s pace of 1:22.388 wasn’t massively slower than the rest of the midfield drivers, but it just was not enough to fight for better positions.

Haas

Horrible day for Haas once again. Both drivers finished over two laps behind the race leader, and showed zero pace on Sunday.

Kevin Magnussen was only faster than George Russell, Robert Kubica, and Romain Grosjean. What about Romain actually? Well, he was incredibly the slowest driver of the race.The French driver had one of the worst races of his career, and only finished ahead of Robert by the end of the race.

The team seems to be completely incapable of turning things around. Hopefully this is not an indication of things to come for the next season.

Williams

Williams isn’t fighting for anything anymore. Both of the drivers were among the slowest of the day, and finished in 16th and 18th place. At least we managed to see a good fight between teammates, with Robert managing a good overtake over the talented George Russell.

Final remarks

We had another good race on Sunday. McLaren didn’t have their best weekend, but they will be poised to take some points in the Circuit of the Americas next week. Racing Point continues their positive trend, with Checo carrying the team at the moment. If Lance can get his act together, the Pink Panthers will look once again as the team that we’re used to see.

Renault is still one of the best midfield teams, but as we saw in México, keeping their 5th place in the Constructor’s Championship won’t be easy. Toro Rosso and Racing Point will fight until the end in order to dislodge the French team.

Haas is a mess, and Williams is Williams. Actually Williams is a mess too. Could we say that Haas is a Williams right now? Yeah, that sounds good to me.

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