Lewis Hamilton has won his fourth Formula 1 championship title today at the Mexican GP 2017. He finished in P9 but with enough points to claim the title, in a race that almost took a wrong turn south for the Brit. Verstappen won the race to mark his third career victory while Bottas finished in P2 ahead of Raikkonen. The rest of the top ten comprised of Vettel, Ocon, Stroll, Perez, Magnussen, Hamilton and Alonso.

The race changed drastically when Verstappen passed Vettel for P1 and left the Ferrari tangled up with Hamilton’s Mercedes. The two drivers retired, falling back to the bottom of the field and from there it was a game of trying to make the best strategy stick.

“I’d like to say a big thanks to everybody in this team. What you’ve done the past couple of years is incredible. I’m so grateful.” said Hamilton. Toto added, “Lewis this is Toto. Not the race we wanted but who cares?! Four times world champion, congratulations!”

Hamilton started the Mexican GP 2017 from third, but the Brit only needed to finish in the top five in order to win the championship. Vettel meanwhile started from pole, his 50th career pole start. Ricciardo qualified 7th but a engine change meant that he would start the race from P16 due to grid penalties.

Everyone started the race on ultrasoft tires except for Grosjean and Alonso who were on the harder super soft compound. The race start was smooth but coming into lap 2 Verstappen managed to pass Vettel for the lead and in the process the Ferrari collided with Hamilton. The Mercedes pitted for a new tire after a puncture while Vettel needed a new nose.

Vettel and Hamilton picked up softs after those stops, and were now qualified to go to the end. Sainz pitted for the same compound followed by Massa and Wehrlein.

Riccardo was also forced to pit after reporting an issue with his turbo.”Did he hit me deliberately?” asked Hamilton regarding the Vettel contact. “Not sure, Lewis…” his team radio said. Their incident including Verstappen was noted by the stewards but no action was taken.

By lap 54 of 71 Hamilton had moved to P11, Vettel meanwhile had moved to P5 after passing Stroll, Ocon was next. The Ferrari man needed to finish second to prevent Hamilton from walking away with the championship. Massa tried to defend P10 from Hamilton but the Mercedes still managed to dive into the points while Vettel passed Ocon for fourth place.

Ericsson became the fourth retirement of the Mexico GP 2017 after his Sauber pitted with smoke coming from his car.

Sainz became the next retirement after reporting that his Toro Rosso was pulling into the straights. Meanwhile, race leader Verstappen set a new lap record with a quick 1m18.892s lap. Hamilton finally made it past Alonso on lap 70/71, that means Vettel needed to finish in P1 in order to prevent the Brit from winning the championship.

Verstappen went ahead to win the Mexican GP 2017, his third career win while Hamilton finished in P9 as the 2017 Formula 1 World Champion.

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