Max Verstappen cruised unchallenged to his 16th win of the season with victory in the Mexico City Grand Prix.

The Dutchman beats his own record for wins in a single Formula 1 season, finishing 13.875s ahead of Lewis Hamilton in second, who also took the fastest lap on the final tour.

Poleman Charles Leclerc finished third for Ferrari, with his teammate Carlos Sainz finishing in fourth.

McLaren’s Lando Norris put on a sterling display from 17th on the grid, and fell from 10th to 14th at a race restart following a Red Flag, to finish fifth, ahead of George Russell, who came home in sixth in the second Mercedes.

Russell was run close at the end by Daniel Ricciardo, who impressed for AlphaTauri en route to seventh place after starting fourth on the grid.

Oscar Piastri took eighth place in the second McLaren with Alex Albon picking up two points for Williams in ninth.

Esteban Ocon completed the top 10 for Alpine, with his teammate Pierre Gasly finishing on the fringes of the points just three seconds back from his fellow Frenchman.

Home hero Sergio Perez retired after an opening lap collision, with Kevin Magnussen crashing out midway through and Fernando Alonso, Lance Stroll and Logan Sargeant also retiring.

	Position		Driver	Team	Gap
	1		Max Verstappen	Red Bull
	2		Lewis Hamilton	Mercedes	13.875
	3		Charles Leclerc	Ferrari	23.124
	4		Carlos Sainz Jr	Ferrari	27.154
	5		Lando Norris	McLaren	33.266
	6		George Russell	Mercedes	41.020
	7		Daniel Ricciardo	AlphaTauri	41.570
	8		Oscar Piastri	McLaren	43.104
	9		Alex Albon	Williams	48.573
	10		Esteban Ocon	Alpine	62.879
	11		Pierre Gasly	Alpine	66.208
	12		Yuki Tsunoda	AlphaTauri	78.982
	13		Nico Hulkenberg	Haas	80.309
	14		Valtteri Bottas	Alfa Romeo	80.597
	15		Guanyu Zhou	Alfa Romeo	81.676
	16		Logan Sargeant	Williams	DNF
	17		Lance Stroll	Aston Martin	DNF
	18		Fernando Alonso	Aston Martin	DNF
	19		Kevin Magnussen	Haas	DNF
	20		Sergio Perez	Red Bull	DNF

The promoters of the Mexico Cty Grand Prix have been hard at work to reduce the security risk to Formula 1 drivers this weekend.

Last year, the huge swathes of VIPs and members of the public in the paddock led to several drivers being harried and harassed.

Measures introduced include reducing the number of people allowed in the paddock, combined with a marketing campaign to encourage respect for all drivers, with billboards asking fans to leave the rivalries to the drivers out on track.

The topic of paddock safety was brought to the attention of several drivers in Thursday’s Press Conference with AlphaTauri’s Yuki Tsunoda seeing it as a positive move.

“Yeah, for me it is easier and I like it,” the AlphaTauri driver briefly summarised.

Estaban Ocon, on the other hand, believes it not to be an issue.

“I think it’s part of what we do, you know, to have fans, supporters and obviously more and more fans, looking at how the sport is going,” he said. “I think it’s a great thing.

“We bring attention to the people and I think it’s just cool to see some atmosphere in the paddock.

“I mean, if we can’t move at all and get to the garage it becomes a problem but I’ve never seen it like that yet.”

Meanwhile, Alex Albon doesn’t feel like the issue lies within the paddock, but going to and from it.

“To be honest with you, I don’t think the paddock has been that bad,” the Williams representative said. “For me it’s more been kind of just getting out of the paddock.

“I don’t know how you guys feel, but sometimes you kind of leave the paddock and almost run over people’s feet because they’re kind of all coming up to your windows and everything.”

Red Bull team-mates Sergio Perez and Max Verstappen have been the focal points of the billboards the GP promoters have put up encouraging respect.

The home favourite was keen to stress that message when asked. “I think it’s important that we give this message, because I think media likes to create this sort of rivalry outside the track and I think we are a great sport,” the Mexican noted.

“We are a great example for a lot of young generations and we should just be focused on the sport side.

“And whatever happens on track should always stay there and that’s the best message we, as a country, want to give to the rest of the world.”

The likes of Zhou Guanyu, George Russell, Charles Leclerc and Lewis Hamilton all had their say on the issue of paddock safety as well, with Zhou admitting last year was “pretty chaotic.”

“The more the merrier is great but at the end of the day, we’re all here to do a job,” Russell added.

“And last year, we were struggling just to get from our engineers’ office to the garage without people jumping on us and sticking cameras right in our face.

“It was a bit of a strange environment. So yeah, I’m happy for the paddock to be packed as long as we’ve all got a sensible way through to get to where we’ve got to be.”

Leclerc stated that “we have to wait and see” if the issue presents itself again this year, but admitted the crowds in Mexico are what “makes this place special.”

“But it’s true that on our way to the garages it was a little bit too much last year, so let’s see if we found the right balance – I don’t know that yet,” the Ferrari man concluded.

Lewis Hamilton, undoubtedly one of the most famous faces on the grid, said that security helps him to engage with fans – and that without it, that would be harder to achieve.

“Ultimately I do have security just to help me get through crowds, without I wouldn’t be able to move as quickly and swiftly as I do,” the Briton asserted.

“It also enables you to have a better interaction with people so you’re not getting overcrowded.”

But the man the Mexican fans all really want to see, is, of course, Perez and the Mexican’s final thoughts on the matter of paddock safety call for a balance.

“I just want everyone to have a great time in my country and I think that’s something that went over the limit last year, that hopefully this year can be improved, because overall, it’s in my opinion, like the best reception for all the drivers in the world.”

McLaren Team Principal Andrea Stella has heaped praise on rookie Oscar Piastri by claiming his “rate of learning is remarkable”, despite a tough weekend in the United States.

Piastri was a victim of the Sprint format in Austin, with Friday’s poor showing in qualifying leaving him at the mercy of the midfield chaos at the start of Sunday’s grand prix.

An opening lap clash with Esteban Ocon led to an early retirement, following up a pointless 10th-place showing in Saturday’s Sprint race.

But the weekend was a low ebb in what has been a great rookie campaign for the Australian, which has seen him attain multiple podiums and a Sprint victory.

Asked about Piastri on Sunday at the Circuit of the Americas, Stella recognised the newcomer’s immense progress since he arrived at McLaren.

“I think we have said even at events where for reasons like Japan, where he was P2 on the grid, we said the real challenge here is actually the race pace because the race pace is the ability part of the race craft that you can test,” Stella said.

“So you sort of discover in the race and very rapidly you need to understand what’s going on with the tyres, what’s going on with the competition, the race situation, adapt and still be quick.

“That’s normally what comes later in the journey of a rookie. So we are extremely pleased that we are actually ticking the box from a pure speed point of view.

“And we saw that even in the Sprint shootout in Q3, he was actually there with Lando.

“But when it comes to putting laps together, especially in hot and high-tech situations like yesterday, for instance, in the Sprint, that’s where experience is important,” he continued.

“But I would like to highlight that the objective for today was to capitalize on yesterday’s experience in the Sprint, learn from a driving point of view, from a tyre management point of view, what we needed to learn and do better today.

“We are happy that actually we were in a better position today in the first stint and this confirms that the rate of learning is remarkable.”

Although Piastri failed to contribute to the team’s points tally last weekend, Norris’ second-place finish in Sunday’s race elevated McLaren above Aston Martin in the standings.

George Russell has labelled the FIA’s quadrupling of maximum fines as “obscene,” stating that some drivers on the grid wouldn’t be able to afford such a penalty.

The FIA quadrupled the previous limit for driver fines, which was set at €250,000, saying that the fines hadn’t been “reviewed nor amended for at least the last twelve years” and they didn’t “reflect the current needs of motorsport.”

However, Russell had various issues not only with the fines but how they were applied and the way the news was communicated to the current crop of Formula 1 drivers, some of whom wouldn’t even be able to afford a penalty as high as €1 million.

Whilst Russell is now a high earner thanks to his drive at Mercedes – one of the biggest teams on the F1 grid – his route into the sport with Williams was a different story.

The Director of the Grand Prix Drivers’ Association was keen to stress the financial burden drivers in smaller teams put themselves under.

“I think it is pretty ridiculous that a driver could be fined a million euros,” said Russell ahead of the United States Grand Prix.

“In my first year of F1 I was on a five-figure salary and actually lost over six figures that first year paying for trainers, paying for flights, paying for an assistant and that’s probably the case for 25% of the grid,” Russell continued.

“We’re doing what we love so we’re not complaining about that, but if you take a year 1 driver, who probably by the end of the year is losing over 100k because of the investments he has to make and fine him a million, what’s going to happen?”

Another issue Russell was keen to stress was where the money goes once a fine has been issued, stating that he and his peers have requested this information from the FIA, but have yet to hear a response.

“We’ve requested before from the FIA to hear where these fines are going towards, the causes they’re going to, and they need to be reinvested into grassroots, but so far we’ve had no response on where that’s going,” he said.

“So we’d love to get some clarity and transparency and if they truly believe a million euro fine is worthwhile and it’s going to reinvest into the sport then maybe one of the drivers who has been paid a lot is happy to pay that fine, but it seems obscene.

“We just want transparency and understanding.

“I think already the fines are getting out of control and how Verstappen was fined 50k for touching a car, Lewis was fined 50k, it feels like these numbers are being plucked out of the air.

“I don’t know what you have to do to get fined €1,000,000.

“I mean, I don’t know any sport or profession outside of the corporate world.

“What do you do to be fined that amount?

“There’s got to be a lot more transparency just to understand where these fines are going.”

Russell hastened to add that communication between drivers and the FIA has improved technically, but more needs to be done.

“I think at least on the technical side with Nikolas Tombazis, it’s been a huge amount of effort and with Steve Nielsen on improving this but you know, we don’t want to be reading things in the media first and that goes for every topic.”

Valtteri Bottas admitted that raising the ride height of the Alfa Romeo C43 at the United States Grand Prix was “more penalizing” for the team than its competitors.

The bumpy, unforgiving nature of The Circuit of the Americas in Austin, Texas prompted several runners to run a higher ride height to mitigate the issue.

Raising the ride height raised the possibility of losing out on performance, leaving several teams caught in two minds regarding the set-up of their cars with only one practice hour.

This prompted some to break parc ferme rules and start Sunday’s grand prix from the pit lane. Meanwhile, both Lewis Hamilton and Charles Leclerc were disqualified post-race for wearing their planks too thin.

However, Bottas and Alfa Romeo went with the cautious approach, ultimately sacrificing performance.

“It just felt like we were always on the back foot against almost every car today,” said Bottas.

“It just confirms what we felt yesterday that pure pace is not there, no matter which tyre compound, we’re just not fast enough.

“My feeling at the moment is that it was track-specific because it’s quite a bumpy track, so we need to lift the car up and I feel that is more penalizing for us than for other cars.”

Bottas was critical of the COTA track surface, with its bumps being a major talking point throughout the weekend.

“It’s still the same, no improvement,” he admitted. “It feels like every year the bumps are in different places, but there are always bumps.

“I mean, that’s one of the characteristics of this track, for our car was a tough one.”

Whilst both Aston Martin and Haas cars withdrew from the starting grid to the pitlane to modify their cars, Bottas admitted that wasn’t an option for Alfa Romeo.

“It wasn’t an option for us, because we were starting 12th and 13th, we thought that if we had a bit of pace then we could get some points, but we didn’t have the pace,” he rued.

“If I could do the day again, yes, I would do it, but it’s not an easy decision.”

Yuki Tsunoda’s five points for eighth place and fastest lap – coupled with a no score for Alfa Romeo – means the Hinwil-based outfit is just six points clear of the Faenza squad.

But Bottas is confident that Alfa Romeo will turn things in its favour this weekend in Mexico.

“At least last year Mexico was good for us, I’ve always liked the track,” the Finn concluded.

“At least it’s smooth, so we can run the car in a better window in terms of ride height and stiffness, so I’m a little bit more optimistic for that.

“I have a bit more hopes for Mexico, and hopefully we can be the team from that group to score some points.”

Max Verstappen won the United States Grand Prix in Austin, Texas in a tense three-way strategy battle between the Red Bull driver, Lewis Hamilton and Lando Norris.

Verstappen, Hamilton and Norris off-set two-stop strategies, but in the end, the Red Bull driver emerged the victor, finishing 2.225s seconds ahead of his old Mercedes rival.

Despite a late race charge, Hamilton was resigned to second place, but clear ahead of Norris, who wound up 10 seconds off of leader Verstappen by the time the chequered flag fell.

Carlos Sainz came home as the best Ferrari in fourth, with Sergio Perez claiming fifth place in the second Red Bull.

Polesitter Charles Leclerc fell foul of a one-stop strategy, resigning him to sixth place and 24 seconds back from the victor.

George Russell took seventh in the second Mercedes, ahead of Pierre Gasly, who took eighth for Alpine.

Lance Stroll took ninth for Aston Martin, with Yuki Tsunoda completing the top-10 for AlphaTauri.

Esteban Ocon and Oscar Piastri were early retirees, with Fernando Alonso joining them late on.

	Position		Driver	Team	Gap
	1		Max Verstappen	Red Bull
	2		Lando Norris	McLaren	10.730
	3		Carlos Sainz Jr	Ferrari	15.134
	4		Sergio Perez	Red Bull	18.460
	5		George Russell	Mercedes	24.999
	6		Pierre Gasly	Alpine	47.996
	7		Lance Stroll	Aston Martin	48.696
	8		Yuki Tsunoda	AlphaTauri	1:14.385
	9		Alex Albon	Williams	1:26.714
	10		Logan Sargeant	Williams	1:27.998
	11		Nico Hulkenberg	Haas	1:29.904
	12		Valtteri Bottas	Alfa Romeo	1:38.601
	13		Guanyu Zhou	Alfa Romeo	1 Lap
	14		Kevin Magnussen	Haas	1 Lap
	15		Daniel Ricciardo	AlphaTauri	1 Lap
	16		Fernando Alonso	Aston Martin	DNF
	17		Oscar Piastri	McLaren	DNF
	18		Esteban Ocon	Alpine	DNF
	19		Lewis Hamilton	Mercedes	DSQ
	20		Charles Leclerc	Ferrari	DSQ

Multiple drivers have called for track limits reform following a number of violations in yesterday’s Formula 1 Sprint at The Circuit of the Americas in Austin, Texas.

Modern Formula 1 circuits seldom offer the peril of a gravel trap to punish drivers for exceeding track limits.

In the present moment, white lines around the track perimeter are all that separate drivers from error, but there’s a problem.

The lack of a physical deterrent sees countless track limits breaches from session to session and race to race – in FP1 at Austin, there were other seventy breaches, prompting a thickening of the white lines at Turns 9, 12 and 19, but several laps were deleted in the 19-Lap Sprint on Saturday, prompting a response from drivers.

 “It makes it slightly easier,” said Alfa Romeo’s Valtteri Bottas of the thickened white lines.

“There’s just a bit more flexibility on the line.

“But still, the issue is it is a track that there’s multiple corners where if you go wide, you gain an advantage, and everyone is pushing the limit.

“So there needs to be a hard limit, whether it’s a gravel strip, or whether it’s a sausage kerb.

“It’s the issue with the track.”

But, given drivers know breaches result in penalties, should they be more disciplined?

“That’s been a big discussion point and was in the drivers’ meeting,” Bottas said.

“For now, the FIA stands firm for the white line rule that is everywhere.

“In the end, there needs to be a hard limit – for example in Austria, where they added gravel, it just fixes the issue.”

Red Bull’s Sergio Perez was also vocal about redefining track limits, particularly how and when drivers are punished for breaches.

“Still I saw just briefly a few occasions where drivers should be punished and they didn’t,” he said.

“Still we are not able to find any consistency there… whatever I say is not going to change anything.”

Alpine’s Pierre Gasly also had his say on the issue, calling for a more permanent fix than simply amending white lines between sessions.

“Long term, we’ve got to find a solution because it was never so great,” he said.

“But we are all working on it, trying to improve it for next year.”

Bottas’ notion of reintroducing gravel traps would not only punish drivers instantly for breaking tack limits, but it would also put a stop to drivers going beyond track limits to pass rivals.

George Russell made such a move on Oscar Piastri on Lap three of yesterday’s Sprint to take sixth place, but he was handed a five-second time penalty for going off-tack to make the manoeuver stick.

Yet despite the penalty, Russell still finished ahead of Piastri, with Williams’ Alex Albon finishing between the eighth and tenth-placed men.

Albon also made a pass on Piastri that saw him escape punishment after an investigation into whether he’d made an illegal move, just as Russell had one prior.

The Williams driver was unpunished, but vocal on the application of the time-penalty ruling, saying it punishes the victim more than the guilty party.

“The penalty isn’t big enough,” he said about Russell’s punishment.

“It’s a silly penalty, I’ve talked about it a few times before, it punishes a slower car and it helps a quicker car.

“I’m sure George knew he was off track, but he thought I can afford these five seconds quicker than being stuck behind him [Piastri].

“So that’s how it is.”

Manthey EMA Porsche’s Thomas Preining became the first Austrian DTM Drivers’ Champion by securing pole position for Race 2 in Hockenheim.

After Preining’s victory in Race 1 on Saturday, championship-contender Mirko Bortolotti needed a mighty qualifying to see the championship go on to be decided later today in Race 2.

Preining entered the session with a 27-point advantage, meaning Bortolotti needed Preining to finish outside the top three positions in qualifying and the bonus points available, whilst landing a top two qualifying spot himself to reduce the advantage to at least 25 points.

In cool conditions, serious lap times weren’t put on the board until the closing moments.

Bortolotti laid down the gauntlet with two provisional pole times, breaking into the 1:36s barrier on his final attempt in the #92 SSR Performance Lamborghini Huracan EVO 2

However, Preining had the last laugh, snatching pole and with it the 2023 DTM Drivers’ Championship by sixth-thousandths of a second in the #91 Porsche 911 GT3 R.

After a teary radio exchange with colourful language, Preining pulled into pit lane, with Bortolotto the first to congratulate the new champion and last year’s champion Sheldon van der Linde quick to congratulate the Austrian shortly thereafter.

Preining’s time of 1:36.800s will go down in DTM history as a championship-winning time, with Bortolotti set to join him on the front row for the final race of the year, with a time just 0.006s back.

Luca Stolz secured third place in the #4 Team HRT Mercedes-AMG GT3, 0.201s back from Preining’s time, with 2022 champion S. van der Linde in fourth for Schubert Motorsport, with the #1 BMW M4 GT3 driver 0.228s off of pole.

Laurin Heinrich rounded out the top-five for Team 75 Motorsport in the #75 Porsche with a time of 1:37.048s.

Thierry Vermeleun led the line for the Ferrari 296 GT3 drivers, landing sixth spot in his #69 Emil Frey Racing machine with a time of 1:37.069s.

Seventh went to Kelvin van der Linde, the South African lapped the Hockenheimring in a time of 1:37.075s in the #3 ABT Sportsline Audi R8 LMS GT3 EVO II, making him the fastest Audi driver of the session.

Eighth went to Christian Engelhart in the #19 GRT Grasser Racing Team Lamborghini, with a time of 1:37.110s.

Ayhancan Güven in the #24 Team75 Motorsport Porsche and Maro Engel in the #48 Team Mann-Filter Mercedes rounded out the top 10.

“I’m just extremely happy, I can’t even, I don’t even know what I feel, to be honest,” Preining said in pit lane after securing the title.

“A dream became a dream come true.”

Preining and the rest of the DTM field will sign off for the 2023 season with Race 2 later today, which commences at 13:30 local time (12:30 BST).

The Technical Advisory Committee (TAC) will see technical directors from across the Formula 1 paddock meet with the FIA to discuss the issue of cockpit heat.

The matter has become a key point of concern following the Qatar Grand Prix, with the intensely hot conditions seeing drivers suffer throughout the race.

Logan Sargeant had to withdraw partway through, with other drivers complaining of faintness, nausea and heat stroke.

Now the TAC, comprised of the 10 team technical directors, the FIA and F1 Chief Technical Officer Pat Symonds will meet virtually on October 31, shortly after the Mexico City Grand Prix to tackle solutions to the cockpit heat problem.

“We’re going to talk about it at the next TAC,” Symonds told Autosport.

“The FIA are doing some work on it, and I’m doing some work on it. “It’s not totally straightforward.

“IndyCars have different vent arrangements at different times. They are quite into their cool suits, which I think are a couple of kilogrammes, they’re not the end of the world.

“You decide what performance you get from weight. So if you are talking about a couple of kilogrammes for a cool suit, for example, you can figure out what that costs you in physics.

“You can’t exactly work out what you gain with the driver, but there will be a point at which you say actually the driver is going to have a drinks bottle.”

The issue of cockpit heat has been an extreme cause of concern amongst drivers ever since the situation reared its head in a nasty way in Qatar, but others have been dismissive.

In Thursday’s Press Conference, George Russell shot down criticism from former drivers such as Gerhard Berger, saying that “of course, we need to be gladiators, but when it comes to the heat there’s only so much the body can take.”

Meanwhile, Russell’s Mercedes team-mate Lewis Hamilton has come down on the side of former drivers.

The veteran driver admitted to Sky Sports that although he “didn’t do the race, so didn’t get to feel the pain that the drivers felt,” he saw F1 as “an extreme sport” and said, “we are paid very highly for what we do and from my perspective when I’ve not been feeling great at the end of the race, I’ve just got to train harder and that’s how it’s been for me.”

No matter which side of the debate drivers fall on, the matter is now in the hands of the TAC, with the task being to seek out possible cooling measures that could be implemented into the sport in the near future.

Oscar Piastri admitted his performance in Friday’s qualifying for the United States Grand Prix wasn’t his “finest” as he rued mistakes that left him only 10th.

Piastri’s McLaren team-mate, Lando Norris secured a place on the front row for Sunday’s race, with just 0.450s covering the top nine positions in the final Q3 shootout.

However, Piastri was cut adrift from the rest of the top 10 – led by Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc – with errors landing him almost three-tenths of a second shy from ninth-placed Sergio Perez.

A back-to-back podium finisher and winner of the Qatar Sprint, Piastri wasn’t best pleased with a performance that could halt his recent podium run on Sunday.

“It just wasn’t the best qualifying from myself, some decent laps, but not enough,” he said. “The last lap in Q3 was quite poor.

“Clearly the car has got some pace in it obviously we’ve got another chance tomorrow to try and do a better job. But, yeah, not my finest qualifying.”

Piastri previously had an off-track excursion during Friday’s solitary practice session, which, coupled with his poor run in Q3, paints a troubling weekend for the rookie Australian.

“Without the mistakes, the pace is generally quite good,” he admitted.

“It’s just very difficult to put it together really, yeah, and a couple of big mistakes on the last lap.

“So yeah it’s just consistency, it’s super bumpy around her and that makes it extremely tough to not make mistakes and to be consistent.”

Piastri noted the different tarmac surfaces around COTA also made it difficult to get to grips with the circuit.

“There’s a couple of bits that are resurfaced and really grippy and smooth,” he added.

“Then there’s the stuff from last year which is less grippy and less smooth, then there’s the stuff that looks like it was laid when the track first opened that has got no grip.

“So that’s another challenge, but the same for everyone.”

Piastri will have another qualifying session to put right the wrongs of Friday, with the Sprint Shootout determining the grid for Saturday’s Sprint race.