2021 Mexican Grand Prix: Starting Grid Following Norris, Tsunoda & Other F1 Drivers’ Grid Penalties

The Mexican Grand Prix has so far been a weekend of surprises, with the latest arriving from Mercedes, as Valtteri Bottas snatched the pole position from Red Bull in the dying minutes of F1 qualifying.

Of course, part of the reason behind Red Bull’s bizarre fallback is their struggle with unstable rear and also the late confusion caused by Sergio Perez and Yuki Tsunoda near the stadium section. Meaning, Red Bull are certainly out of position, having to start the race from behind the Mercedes drivers.

But, here’s something more interesting. Red Bull and Mercedes aren’t the only ones out of position, as, in that case, pretty much the entire grid looks quite mixed up due to the significant number of drivers serving grid penalties.

F1 Drivers set to serve grid penalties

Let’s start with the driver with the least number of grid drop; George Russell. The Briton will be serving a 5-place grid penalty ahead of Sunday’s race citing a gearbox change. Hence, Russell will start ahead of what is quite a massive train of cars with complete power unit changes.

Lando Norris, Esteban Ocon, Lance Stroll, and Yuki Tsunoda will be starting from the back of the grid. And there was indeed a tiny battle taking place amongst themselves during qualifying, as the four battled for P17 on the grid, the best possible starting position they could secure.

And it is Tsunoda that comes ahead in this battle followed by Norris, Ocon, and finally, Stroll, who might as well witness more component changes following the high-speed 12G crash around the outside of turn 16 during Q1.

There were visible suspension damage, rear-wing damage, and a possible blow to the gearbox as well. Hence, here’s the final starting grid ahead of Sunday’s F1 race.

Starting grid for the Mexican GP

1. Valtteri Bottas (Mercedes AMG)
2. Lewis Hamilton (Mercedes AMG)
3. Max Verstappen (Red Bull Racing)
4. Sergio Perez (Red Bull Racing)
5. Pierre Gasly (AlphaTauri)
6. Carlos Sainz (Scuderia Ferrari)
7. Daniel Ricciardo (McLaren)
8. Charles Leclerc (Scuderia Ferrari)
9. Sebastian Vettel (Aston Martin)
10. Kimi Raikkonen (Alfa Romeo)
11. Antonio Giovinazzi (Alfa Romeo)
12. Fernando Alonso (Alpine)
13. Nicholas Latifi (Williams)
14. Mick Schumacher (Haas)
15. Nikita Mazepin (Haas)
16. George Russell (Williams) 
17. Yuki Tsunoda (AlphaTauri)
18. Lando Norris (McLaren)
19. Esteban Ocon (Alpine)
20. Lance Stroll (Aston Martin)

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