The Mexican Grand Prix 2018 will take place at Autódromo Hermanos Rodríguez and two Red Bull drivers Daniel Ricciardo and Max Verstappen will start the race from grid one and two respectively. Even though, the contenders of the Drivers' Championship, Britain's Lewis Hamilton and German driver Sebastian Vettel, failed to take the pole position the Mercedes driver is hopeful about his fifth world championship title.
Race: Mexican Grand Prix 2018
Date: Sunday, October 28
Time: 7.10 PM GMT/ 3.10 AM SGT (Next day)/ 12.40 AM IST (Next day)
Venue: Autódromo Hermanos Rodríguez
The race will start at around 3:10 AM Monday SGT. Apart from the top four drivers, Ricciardo, Verstappen, Hamilton and Vettel, the another Mercedes driver Valtteri Bottas will start the race from the fifth position and will try to put pressure on the Ferrari's Vettel. But Bottas will be chased by the sixth grid driver and Vettel's teammate Kimi Raikkonen.
While Renault's Nico Hülkenberg will start his engine for the final race in Mexico as a seventh grid driver, his teammate Carlos Sainz Jr. will follow him. Charles Leclerc, the future teammate of Vettel will start his race from the ninth position and Sauber-Ferrari's Marcus Ericsson have managed to gain 10th position in the final qualifier round.
Broadcasters and Live Streaming:
Singapore: Fox Sports
UK: Sky Sports F1
India: Star Sports Select HD, Hotstar
Live Timings: Race updates will be available on Formula One official website.
Apart from these top 10 drivers, there are others, who will also race to gain some points.
11. Esteban Ocon, Racing Point Force India
12. Fernando Alonso, McLaren
13. Sergio Pérez, Racing Point Force India
14. Brendon Hartley, Toro Rosso
15. Stoffel Vandoorne, McLaren
16. Kevin Magnussen, Haas
17. Lance Stroll, Williams
18. Romain Grosjean, Haas
19. Sergey Sirotkin, Williams
20. Pierre Gasly, Toro Rosso
After the final qualifier, the 33-year-old Hamilton, who needs to finish seventh or higher on Sunday to claim his fifth world championship stated that he is happy with the 'night and day' improvements made by his team that helped him during the qualifiers. He said that there were several different problems on the whole car, mechanical side, aero side, mostly mechanical side and a little bit aero and a little bit on the engine side of things."
So big changes and improvements were made overnight and to come back in today and put us in contention all of a sudden – we didn't think yesterday with that performance that we would be able to qualify on an ultrasoft, so that would have been a massive disadvantage for us tomorrow if we had to start on the hyper for example.
"As soon as we got into qualifying, I knew straight away the way the car's feeling, I was like, 'OK we're in a much stronger position to fight for position'. I'm just glad that I was able to do the job, improve on my second run. Qualifying was pretty good for me
Hamilton's rival, Ferrari's Vettel is now hoping to win the race to keep his slim title hope alive as the difference between both the top contenders is 70 points. After the qualifier, he said, "We'll see – it's a long race. I think it will be decided over strategy and tyres: how confident you are at the end of the stints, how much you can push – so we'll have to wait and see."
What are the championship standings?
- Lewis Hamilton - 346
- Sebastian Vettel - 276
- Kimi Raikkonen - 221
- Valtteri Bottas - 217
- Max Verstappen - 191
- Daniel Ricciardo - 146
- Nico Hulkenberg - 61
- Sergio Perez - 57
- Kevin Magnussen - 53
- Fernando Alonso - 50
Facts about Autodromo Hermanos Rodriguez?
- First grand prix: 1963
- Laps: 71
- 2017 winner: Max Verstappen
- Number of corners: 17
- Race lap record: 1:18.785 - Sebastian Vettel, 2017
