Mercedes clinched their fourth consecutive Constructor’s Title in Texas last week and Lewis Hamilton will probably take his fourth World Drivers Championship this Sunday in Mexico.
In fact, with Hamilton simply needing to finish within 16 points of Sebastian Vettel, it looks like something of a slam-dunk. When you consider these scenarios,
-
Hamilton is world champion if he finishes fifth or higher
-
If Vettel finishes second, Hamilton is world champion if he finishes ninth or higher
-
If Vettel third or lower, Hamilton will be world champion
…not even the unpopular ‘double points for the final race of the season’ (which happened in the 2014 season) could realistically stop the 32-year-old Brit from landing his third title in four years.
And sadly there are very few scraps further down the grid. Bottas could catch Vettel for second spot in the Driver’s Championship, the Finn trails the Ferrari driver by 21 points, with their points haul being 244 and 265 respectively. But few take note or get rewarded for finishing second in this particular race.
Renault driver change just in time?
Constructors points do carry some considerable financial gain however and while the current 1-2-3 (Mercedes, Ferrari, Red Bull) cannot change and only Biblical intervention can see Williams finish fourth (a 1-2 in the final three races of 2017 is pretty much what is needed for them to overhaul Force India), the battle for fifth, sixth, seventh and eighth is intriguing.
Haas currently sit in eighth with 43 points, Renault have 48, Toro Rosso 53 and Williams 68. Given Renault relied on Jolyon Palmer for 16 races this season – during which time he scored points just once – their position in this dog-fight is quite remarkable.
But they have pulled an ace from their sleeve by replacing the Brit with Carlos Sainz and the Spaniard wasted no time in putting some points in the team’s bag with an excellent seventh in Austin last weekend.
Finding 20 points to overhaul Williams may be a big ask but it is definitely conceivable, the famous team has scored just eight points in the last three races. Most definitely they can overtake Toro Rosso who are playing a game of musical chairs within their ranks and, at the time of writing, we can only speculate who will be driving for them in Mexico. So far this season five individual drivers have represented the Italian team. Our guess is Brendon Hartley and Pierre Gasly.
Head for heights
The battle for Constructor Championship positions could ultimately hinge on reliability and Sunday’s race is one where the pundits invariably suggest we can expect a high rate of attrition.
The reason for their scepticism is altitude (the Autodromo Hermanos Rodriguez is over two kilometres above sea level) which makes turbocharged engines work much harder than usual.
However, 16 of the 20 cars which set out in 2015 completed the race and only one of the non-finishers was ‘mechanical’ related. Last year, the second running of this race, all but Pascal Wehrlein completed the race and his issue was an opening lap collision.
