McLaren left Mexico City with mixed emotions after another frustrating afternoon that saw Lando Norris finish fifth while Oscar Piastri's impressive recovery was wiped out by a penalty. The team had the pace to challenge for a podium, possibly even fight for the win, but qualifying struggles and the track's notorious difficulty for overtaking left both drivers unable to convert their speed into results. Lando started sixth and Oscar twelfth, and despite showing strong race performance, neither could make up enough ground when it mattered most.
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Lando's opening lap went backwards as he slipped to eighth, but Oscar made a brilliant start to climb to ninth. Once the field spread out and Overtake Mode availability dwindled, Lando managed to pass Franco Colapinto and Arvid Lindblad to regain sixth but found himself stuck behind George Russell with no clean way past. Oscar, meanwhile, was struggling more with rear tire degradation and pitted earlier on lap 26, triggering a chain reaction of stops. Lando went long, hoping for a safety car or to build a tire advantage, and rose to second when Russell pitted before his own stop on lap 39.
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The race took another turn when Valtteri Bottas crashed at Turn 1, bringing out a safety car followed by a red flag that reset everything. Under the restart, all drivers fitted soft tires with 24 laps to go. Oscar had recovered to seventh, but disaster struck on lap 59 when he collided with Lindblad at the first chicane while battling for position. The contact caused significant floor damage that cost him downforce, and though he fought hard to keep seventh position, the resulting penalty for the incident pushed him out of the points entirely.
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Lando held fifth through to the finish but was frustrated by how closely he'd followed both Russell and then Charles Leclerc without being able to overtake. He highlighted that the straight-line speed limitations imposed by current technical regulations made passing nearly impossible at this circuit, regardless of pace advantage. Despite the disappointment, Lando acknowledged the team's underlying performance was strong and expressed confidence that upgrades coming in Brazil will help their push for third in the constructors' championship. He also praised Andrea Kimi Antonelli's championship success at just twenty years old and only his second F1 season.
Shop the collection: Lando Norris merch • Oscar Piastri merch • Charles Leclerc merch • George Russell merch • Kimi Antonelli merch • McLaren merch • Scuderia Ferrari merch • Mercedes-AMG merch
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