2023 Mexico City Grand Prix Heroes and Zeroes

[Jericoke]

Heroes

Max/Newey.  Cut and paste.  Max talked about the strategy the team used, which I'm sure was great, but the utter dominance of Max driving Newey's masterpiece makes the rest of the team invisible.

Hamilton.  Driver and team finally seem to be getting back in sync.  Hopefully this is a building block to a stronger 2024.

Norris.  Sometimes a bad day creates the most interesting racing.  If he'd qualified well, and started strong, there would be little to say, but instead we got to watch a great fight/recovery.

Ricciardo, Albon:  pulling in solid points finishes for cars that never guarantee such things.

Race Control.  Calling a red flag almost immediately after K-Mag's crash to ensure the safety barrier was properly sorted.

Zeroes

Perez.  Yes, a good racer needs to be daring, but a points scoring driver needs to be aware that running three wide means you can't rely on someone giving space.  I don't blame him for trying, well, I guess I am, hence the 'zero'.

Stroll/Aston Martin.  Has any team/driver fallen apart this completely over an F1 season? 

LeClerc.  Sure, third place is good, but he's at risk of going down in history as a one dimensional driver setting pole positions and then vanishing on race day.

[Dare]

Is Max that good and Perez thay bad? I'm thinking
yes on both accounts.

After the last few races I see Danny back at RB and maybe
his downfall trying to keep up with Max

[Willy]

Once again I can agree with what Jeri posted.

Perez must have felt amazing pressure and this is what caused him to try a 3 wide 1st corner pass. It was never going to work in the 1st corner and everyone is just trying to get around the corner and nobody is looking in their mirrors.
Imagine, feeling the pressure RBR puts on him PLUS all those hometown fans. No wonder he went for it. He was going to be a hero or a goat.

Leclerc has shown more then a few times he is a great qualifier and then can't seem to follow that up in the race.  Sort of like George was at Williams when he was Mr Saturday.

I find Mexico to be a rather boring race to watch.  Way to many slow speed corners so they can weave in and out of grandstands so the fans all get a close look at the cars.

[Alianora La Canta]

Leclerc has shown more then a few times he is a great qualifier and then can't seem to follow that up in the race.  Sort of like George was at Williams when he was Mr Saturday.

For the fairly straightforward reason that neither car is capable of following up that level of performance. It was nice to see Leclerc being allowed a decent strategy for once, though.

[Jericoke]

Leclerc has shown more then a few times he is a great qualifier and then can't seem to follow that up in the race.  Sort of like George was at Williams when he was Mr Saturday.

For the fairly straightforward reason that neither car is capable of following up that level of performance. It was nice to see Leclerc being allowed a decent strategy for once, though.

Always have to keep in mind that the driver isn't out there alone, they've got a support staff in the hundreds, and even on race day they've got someone in their ear who is in touch with over a dozen people.  It's easy for the driver to make a bonehead move (running three wide into the first corner), but it's much harder to pick out when the strategy doesn't suit the car, or the driver's driving choices don't line up with the limitation of the break bias.  I'm sure that 90% of the 'heroes' are where the drivers are atop a pyramid of excellence.  Limits on testing/free practise really puts an emphasis on this team work.