Windsor: 'That will have irritated Verstappen a bit'

"Max Verstappen started on the hard tyre and as it happened he had the two Ferraris behind him but they were never in a position to challenge. He made a great start, by the time he came out of Turn 1 he was already three or four lengths ahead of Charles Leclerc, and he just pulled away relatively quickly because in his mind the real threat was going to be potentially Lewis Hamilton on the medium tyres," Windsor analyses in his latest YouTube video.

By the time the Mercedes driver had secured second place at the expense of Charles Leclerc, the gap with Verstappen was already around two and a half seconds. "2.3 became 3.2, became 3.6, became 4.1, became 4.4. And this was Max controlling the race but pulling away from Lewis. Lewis pushing as hard as he dared on the medium, this was a decisive moment in terms of Max Verstappen winning the Mexican Grand Prix."

Hamilton takes the bonus point

On the last lap of the race, the seven-time world champion did get the point for the fastest race lap. "That would have irritated Max a bit because he always loves to set fastest lap and at that point he had it. And Lewis set it on the last lap. That brought a smile obviously to everybody's face in the Mercedes garage and certainly Lewis enjoyed that," the analyst observed.

That Hamilton had so much left on that last lap surprised Windsor. According to the 71-year-old Briton, it is a sign that there was still more in the W14 and that Hamilton may have saved too much in the rounds before that. "If Lewis had known that the tyres were going to last to the point where he could do a 21.3 on the last lap, how much quicker would he have driven, how much more would he have pushed the tyres over the previous 12 laps?"