Alexander Albon has out-scored Max Verstappen since the pair became team mates at Red Bull six races ago.

When the pair arrived in Mexico, Verstappen was already trailing his team mate by 17 points. A luckless race for Verstappen in Mexico saw Albon increase his lead, and the scoreline between the pair now stands at 58-39.

Horner acknowledged the surprising turn of events following yesterday’s race: “Alex has scored more points than Max since the summer break, which you would never have expected.”

In six races, Albon has scored just five points fewer than Pierre Gasly did in his 12 starts for Red Bull earlier in the season. However Gasly’s return to Toro Rosso continues to go well. He surprisingly moved back into sixth place in the championship by finishing ninth, but remains under threat from Albon and Carlos Sainz Jnr.

Albon also finished in the points for the eighth race in a row and took his best starting position to date with fifth on the grid.

There was plenty about last weekend Verstappen will want to forget, not least the penalty which cost him pole position. This was the first time a driver lost pole position due to a penalty since Michael Schumacher in the 2012 Monaco Grand Prix. But while Verstappen was penalised after qualifying, Schumacher arrived at the weekend knowing he had a grid penalty.

That handed Charles Leclerc his seventh pole position of the year. He is now certain to at least share honours in the Pole Position Trophy standings this year, and will win it outright unless one of the Mercedes drivers takes pole position for all of the remaining races.

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But after Ferrari inherited pole position, for the third race in a row Mercedes turned the tables on their rivals and won. Ferrari failed to convert pole into victory for the third race in a row. The last team to do with was Mercedes six years ago, when they took pole in China, Bahrain and Spain but lost to Ferrari twice and Red Bull once.

The benefactor was Lewis Hamilton, who scored his 10th win of the season and moved within touching distance of his sixth world championship. This is the fifth time Hamilton has won 10 races in a year, all of which have come in the past six seasons; 2017 was the only one in which he failed to reach double-digits (he won ‘just’ nine).

That was Hamilton’s 83rd career win, leaving him eight shy of Schumacher’s all-time record, and the 100th for Mercedes. The are the fourth team in F1 history to achieve a century of wins. They join Ferrari, who scored their 100th win in the 1990 French Grand Prix (coincidentally, the race after their most recent Mexican Grand Prix victory); McLaren, who hit 100 three years later in Brazil; and Williams, who marked their centenary at the 1997 British Grand Prix.

After those three teams scored their 100th wins within seven years of each other, their current win tallies say much about how their fortunes have diverged since then. Ferrari have 238, McLaren 182 and Williams 114 – the latter likely to be overhauled by Mercedes during the 2020 F1 season.

Quotes: Dieter Rencken

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Review the year so far in statistics here:

Have you spotted any other interesting stats and facts from the Mexican Grand Prix? Share them in the comments.

2019 Mexican Grand Prix