Max Verstappen says he would be open to partnering Daniel Ricciardo at Red Bull Racing next season as speculation over Sergio Pérez’s place at the team continues to simmer.

Pérez has come under increasing pressure since Max Verstappen zeroed in on his third world championship. With the Dutchman having accumulated enough points to secure the constructors title all on his own, focus has turned on Pérez to secure Red Bull Racing’s first one-two finish in the drivers championship.

But the Mexican has struggled to reboot himself after a long slog of poor form in the middle of the season. His performances in Japan and Qatar ranked among his worst of the season, and Lewis Hamilton has since closed to within 20 points of second on the title table.

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Fernando Alonso has promised retribution for those who spread rumours that he’s considering leaving Aston Martin in a bid for Sergio Pérez’s seat at Red Bull Racing.

The days between the Mexico City Grand Prix and the sport arriving in Brazil have been gripped by wild and highly speculative rumours about a shock driver market twist to come in the final weeks of the season.

The rumour mill was set off by respected Spanish journalist Albert Fabrega, who mysteriously tweeted on Sunday night: “I don’t want to believe the rumour that they have told me now in the paddock. No.”

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AlphaTauri boss Franz Tost says he never doubted Daniel Ricciardo’s ability to return to form after his dire two seasons at McLaren.

Ricciardo has returned to the team that effectively launched his Formula 1 career to rebuild his reputation, having lost his seat on the grid after being pummelled by Lando Norris over the last two campaigns.

The Australian spent the first six months of the season restoring his driving style in the Red Bull simulator before getting the nod to replace Nyck de Vries at Red Bull sister team AlphaTauri in late July.

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Formula 1’s all-Americas triple-header ends this weekend with the São Paulo Grand Prix at Interlagos in Brazil, one of the sport’s most storied venues.

While both championships are long wrapped up, history is still up for grabs this weekend.

But rather than history that might be etched onto the F1 honour rolls, this is the battle to retain a place in the grand prix story.

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MotoGP’s gruelling Asian triple-header is in the books, but it’s difficult to know what to make of what’s turned into a rollercoaster of a championship.

Let’s start with what we know for certain.

After 17 weekends there are only three riders still in contention for the title. Marco Bezzecchi, at 74 points down, is only just mathematically in it and faces elimination at the next round in Malaysia.

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Lewis Hamilton says whether or not he has a chance at snatching second in the drivers championship is up to the under-pressure Sergio Pérez after the Mexican’s first-lap crash slashed the margin between them to 20 points.

Pérez’s struggles this season have left him with less than half of champion teammate Max Verstappen’s points total, and he’s now vulnerable to attack from Hamilton behind, particularly as Mercedes grows in confidence with its latest series of updates.

Hamilton’s disqualification from the United States Grand Prix blew out the shrinking margin to 39 points, but Pérez’s first-lap crash at his home Mexico City Grand Prix allowed the Briton to close to within 20 points.

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Aussie rising star Jack Doohan says his racing future is secure despite being unable to confirm a program for 2024.

Doohan is currently competing in his second season of Formula 2, where he’s fourth in the championship standings with one round to go in Abu Dhabi.

The 20-year-old, who is also Alpine’s Formula 1 reserve driver, has said he won’t recontest the junior series next year, with his focus switching to securing a seat on the premier-class grid.

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This weekend’s São Paulo Grand Prix will mark the one-season anniversary of Mercedes’s last victory in Formula 1.

Mercedes that day appeared to be turning a corner after a difficult start to life under the then new regulations. The one-two led by George Russell was a shot in the arm and was assumed to be a sign that it would return to regular victory contention this season.

But 2023 has been scarcely better. Though the team has improved to second in the constructors standings, it is no closer to scoring a meritorious victory.

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Two breakthrough Ford victories at the Gold Coast provided seemingly emphatic evidence that the sport’s latest round of parity changes is doing the job.

Parity has been one of the season’s biggest narratives, with Ford teams unconvinced that the Gen3 Mustang can match the Chevrolet Camaro in a straight fight.

With so much of both cars now effectively bought off the shelf under the regulations introduced this season, the five Ford-backed squads feel they’ve been hamstrung in this year’s championship, resulting in an all-General Motors title battle.

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Daniel Ricciardo was surprisingly plucky for a man who’d finished his previous race stone-cold last.

Just days before arriving in Mexico City, Ricciardo had trundled to 15th at the United States Grand Prix, his first race back from a broken hand ending anonymously a lap down from the leaders.

And yet here he was seemingly brimming with confidence for his second crack behind the wheel.

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Max Verstappen is accumulating Formula 1 records so fast that he’s starting to re-break some of his own.

Verstappen’s 16th win of the season eclipses the previous best of 15 set by — you guessed it — himself last season.

Of course you might argue that numbers like these are historically meaningless with so many races in modern F1.

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For exciting results, just remove oxygen.

Mexico City always produces interesting and unusual results, with its elevation at 2.2 kilometres above sea level creating a unique set of conditions for Formula 1.

The thin air means there’s less grip. Small changes in track temperature have a huge impact on grip — and the track temperature can vary massively based on minor changes in cloud cover.

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Lando Norris opened the Mexico City Grand Prix weekend by declaring that McLaren wouldn’t be very competitive.

As has often been the case this year, the exact opposite of his pessimistic forecast appears to be coming true.

To be fair to Norris, on paper this track shouldn’t suit the MCL60. It’s mostly slow, fiddly corners of the kind the car hates, even after its massive round of mid-year upgrades. The low-grip conditions are also generally not McLaren territory, nor are the long straights.

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Max Verstappen topped a drizzly FP2 to sweep Friday practice at the Mexico City Grand Prix.

Light rain arrived in time for the start of the session and intensified in the last sector in the last 15 minutes, but it was never hard enough to suspend running or force drivers onto wet-weather tires.

The cooler track conditions appeared to bring the field closer together, with seven manufacturers represented in the top eight, which was spread over just 0.391s.

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Max Verstappen has pipped Alex Albon to top spot in first practice at the Mexico City Grand Prix.

Verstappen set the benchmark at 1m 19.718s on a sole run on fresh softs, though he subsequently had to cut short his stint on the red-marked tire after reporting something loose in the footwell.

Albon was his closest challenger, the Williams car propelling him to a time just 0.095s further back thanks to a purple first sector.

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You’d have to be brave or crazy to be willing to bet on what the MotoGP championship will look like this Sunday night.

October in the premier class has been nothing short of electric.

Jorge Martin seized control of the championship in the Indonesian sprint, but his grasp lasted barely 24 hours, surely the shortest time spent at the top of the standings in the history of grand prix racing.

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It’s hard to think of a step change as dramatic as transitioning from the grandeur of Bathurst to the wackiness of the Gold Coast.

Gone is the flowing ascent, the glide over the hill and the twisting run down.

In comes big braking, kerb hopping and wall grinding.

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There are 20 drivers competing in Formula 1 this season, but Mexico’s energetic crowd has eyes only for Sergio Pérez.

The Mexico City Grand Prix is built on Pérez’s idol-like status in his home country, where he’s held up as one of the nation’s great sporting exports.

It might be easy to see Pérez only through the lens of his struggles this season, but it’s worth remembering the body of work he’s put together over more than a decade in the sport, including six victories — one of which was a superb midfield win with Racing Point — and 28 other podiums.

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