Verstappen claims record 14th victory of 2022 season in Mexico

Mexico City: Dutch Formula 1 driver Max Verstappen made history as he beat Mercedes’ Lewis Hamilton to claim his 14th victory of the 2022 season in the Mexican Grand Prix after an intriguing strategic battle at the Autodromo Hermanos Rodriguez here on Sunday.

Verstappen, who has already clinched the world title, finished ahead of former world champion and fiercest rival Hamilton and Red Bull team-mate Sergio Perez.

It secures another record for the young Dutchman, as he now boasts the most wins in a single F1 campaign, moving one clear of the 13 achieved by Germany’s Michael Schumacher (2004) and Sebastian Vettel (2013).

Verstappen, whose Red Bull team opted for a soft-medium tyre



strategy, took the chequered flag some 15 seconds ahead of Hamilton, who was left to question why Mercedes swapped their starting set of mediums for hard tyres, according to formula1.com.

Perez gave the home fans something to cheer about in third, having threatened to challenge Hamilton late on, while Mercedes’ George Russell — who lost out to his team-mate at the start — took a distant fourth.

Russell was also unhappy with his strategy, repeatedly asking Mercedes to pit again and ditch the hard tyres, which failed to bring the race back to the Silver Arrows in the closing stages — a stop for soft tyres with two laps to run at least yielding the fastest lap.