🏁 Checo's Mare

PLP Season 1 Edition 6 🏁

If you don’t speak the Queen’s English, “mare” is short for nightmare - an unfortunate descriptor of Checo Perez’s weekend. You’re bound to notice the commentators use the word all the time now if you tune in to the international broadcast.

It’s Race Weekend!

Rounding out the triple header, this weekend’s action heads to the Autodromo Jose Carlos Pace in Sao Paulo, Brazil. And for the 3rd time in 4 races , we’ve got ourselves a Sprint. While some folks are not fans of the sprint format, (we here at the Pulse do not include ourselves in that group - we quite enjoy them) one proposal floated was to crown a sprint champion separately from the driver’s and constructors’ championships. It’s an intriguing idea that could see some teams tailor strategy and car set up to excel at sprint races- but in reality would likely just be another championship for Max to win 🤷‍♂️. Timing for this weekend in EST:

• Practice 1: Friday, Nov 3, 10:30am - 11:30am

• Qualifying: Friday, Nov 3 2:00pm - 3:00pm

• Sprint Shootout: Saturday, Nov 4 10:00pm - 10:45pm

• Sprint: Saturday, Nov 4 2:30pm - 3:30pm

• Race: Sunday, Nov 5 12:00pm

Quick Quiz: Max Verstappen just set the record for GP wins in a season with 16. Who held the previous record of 15?

Find out below ⬇

Mexico GP Recap

Podium: 🥇VER - 🥈HAM - 🥉LEC

DNF: PER - MAG - ALO - STR - SAR

Although we were back to the regular race format, there was no shortage of action this past weekend. Qualifying was kicked off by a chaotic Q1 - with multiple drivers receiving penalties and investigations by the stewards - and a shocking exit by Lando Norris. Albon’s impressive practice sessions didn’t materialize when it mattered, failing to make it past Q2. Even Ferrari was surprised by their Q3 pace, putting in mega laps to lock out the front row once no drivers could improve on their second attempts of the session. That meant Verstappen would fall to P3, with Ricciardo putting in a stellar lap to take P4.

The excitement of Ferrari’s strong Quali was short lived, with Max shooting out of a cannon at lights out and splitting the prancing horses right up the middle.

Pain. 

Heading into turn 1, Perez clearly had the same idea as Max and thought he saw a gap where there wasn’t one and turned into Charles Leclerc, a collision that sent the hometown hero airborne and ended his race. When asked about it later, Checo admitted that he was going for the win. He talked about how he’d had podiums in Mexico before, but left it all out on the track trying to put himself in a position for P1. You’ve got to respect the mindset, even though the risk did not pay off this time and the crash was ultimately his own fault. Considering how his season’s gone, it was a gutsy call - though I’m sure not everyone would agree with the decision.

Leclerc was able to continue the race despite front wing damage, and put in a solid drive to take P3 in spite of it. Hamilton continued his superb driving passing Leclerc in dramatic fashion by catching some grass, and held on for P2. A red flag came out halfway through the race after suspension failure caused a nasty crash for Kevin Magnussen, who was clearly shaken up but thankfully unscathed.

A standing restart allowed teams to adjust strategies, with teams split between medium and hard tires to finish out the race. Despite another bad start from Norris, he was able to put in an inspired drive to finish P5. Super impressive considering he started the race in P19. The performance earned him Driver of the Day honors for 4th time this year - the most among all drivers. Ricciardo also had an arguement to win DotD after a P7 result. He likely would have finished higher if not for the red flag, and if given one more lap Russell admitted that Danny would have overtaken him.

Yuki attempted a risky move and spun out trying to pass Piastri, while Stroll and Bottas came together later on to continue the unraveling at Aston. At the checkered flag it was who else but Max claiming P1 and the F1 single season win record. But something tells us he isn’t going to stop at 16.

• Watch: Perez post race interview

• 10 things we learned at the Mexico GP

• Power Rankings after this week

Brazil GP Preview

This weekend we head to “Interlagos” (the traditional name for the Sao Paulo circuit) which means “between lakes” in Portuguese. Named for the neighborhood in which it resides, it sits between (you guessed it) two lakes built in the early 1900’s to supply water and electric power to the surrounding region.

The track features banked corners, a snaking sector 2, and some uphill left handers towards the finish line. As one of the faster laps on the calendar, the race will take 71 to reach the checkered flag.

Last year’s race had plenty of intrigue, with K-Mag taking pole and George Russell winning both the Sprint and GP - firsts for both drivers in F1. With just 3 race weekends remaining, Checo will look to hold off the surging Hamilton in the battle for P2, McLaren and Mercedes will try to finally pull a victory away from Red Bull, Ricciardo will continue to try to reclaim his old form and catch Williams, and Aston will try to stop the spiral. Clearly we still have a lot of fireworks left in 2023.

• Watch: K-Mag takes pole at the 2022 Brazil GP

• Russell gets first victory of career, winning Sprint and GP in 2022

• Race highlights from 2022

Down the Grid

Tech Talk

• The key to Ferrari locking out the front row in Qualifying this past weekend [F1 Unlocked Only]

• Race pace visual from @FDataAnalysis on X (formerly Twitter):

Off the Grid

• The cooldown room (otherwise known as the Max Verstappen podcast) banter between drivers has become a must watch - Post race this weekend, when Lewis saw Checo’s crash: “Oh ****, he pulled a me in Qatar!”

• The absolute coolest F1 viewing set up we’ve ever seen

• Hulkenberg responds to Ocon’s radio message 😂 :

Enjoy the racing this weekend - we’ll be back next Friday to recap all the action.

But before we go, the following is presented without comment (via @maxv1stappen_ on TikTok):

Questions? Comments? Did we get something wrong (never 😁)? Let us know ▶ [email protected]