Francesco Bagnaia admitted to some relief as he bounced back to secure victory in a “must-win” Thailand Grand Prix after being defeated by Jorge Martin in the sprint encounter.

The Italian achieved his first win in wet weather conditions, bringing his 2024 tally up to nine successes over full-length races. 

Coming after he finished third behind Martin in the sprint race, the double defending champion benefitted from a wide moment by his Pramac Ducati rival to move into the lead on lap five.

Though he’d engage in a to-and-fro with the close-following Marc Marquez in the ensuing laps, the Gresini rider’s fall on lap 12 would release Bagnaia to race home for an important victory.

“Absolutely, it was a must-win,” he declared. “In terms of the championship, not too much. But in terms of feeling, in terms of mental side, it was very important – not just for me, but also for him.

“I want to dedicate this victory to my team, because after the morning we just sat down and spoke about what to do to improve the situation because I was struggling a lot on braking.

“And we did it, again. I’m so happy. It wasn’t an easy race because it was very long and stressful, but as soon as I started I saw that my feeling was very good and I saw Jorge pushing a lot.

Francesco Bagnaia, Ducati Team, Jorge Martin, Pramac Racing

Photo by: Gold and Goose / Motorsport Images

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“But I just decided to wait two more laps to make sure the rear was more ready, and as soon as it was I just tried to catch him back.

“Then I opened the gap, but Marc was pushing hard. The lap he crashed on we were two tenths faster in sector three, so it was an incredible lap already and the pace was super strong.”

The results have reduced Bagnaia’s deficit to Martin as the championship protagonists are now separated by 17 points with two rounds and four races remaining.

“It’s a good day for us for everything,” added Bagnaia. “And the 17 [points] that is the gap is a good number for me. It was a day to make the difference and luckily we did it.

“I knew it was important that I finished first rather than second to gain more points for the championship.”

Bringing his career tally of MotoGP wins to 27, this was nonetheless Bagnaia’s first achieved in wet conditions, a small career milestone that gives him confidence moving forward.

“Because I always crashed, but I was always not fast enough,” he said. “Two years ago I was fighting for the win [in the wet in Thailand], but I finished two seconds behind the leader.

“The pace was there but not enough. Today from the start I believed a lot in trying to do it, and it was the best time.” 

Here we go again. There’s still a sprint and a grand prix left in Formula 1’s penultimate triple-header of the year for things to get ugly at least a third time in this run between 2024 title contenders Max Verstappen and Lando Norris and up next after Brazil is Sin City…

Given last Saturday’s news that the FIA is open to altering F1’s racing guidelines – the topic of the Mexico event’s build-up – there had been relief in some quarters of the F1 paddock.

The hope is that this willingness to engage on racing rules, and fast, might finally stamp out Verstappen’s cynical professional foul tactic.

This was in action at Turn 4 of the Autodromo Hermanos Rodriguez on lap 10 of last weekend’s Mexico Grand Prix. Again it – and the even worse move a few seconds later at Turn 7 – eclipses a famous Ferrari win. But Fred Vasseur and co are actually gleeful that the focus keeps falling elsewhere, while the Scuderia concentrates on notching up wins.

This time, after the ruling on the Verstappen/Norris Austin Turn 12 clash had been botched by their predecessors, the Mexico stewards penalised the world champion for doing yet another ‘turning-defence-into-attack’ move – this one sent Norris off across the Turn 4 grass – and they did so with a 10-second penalty, with another soon to follow.

On Turn 4 alone, this sets a strong precedent the stewards at the upcoming Brazilian and Las Vegas races must heed.

On the specifics of the 10s penalty, FIA sources explained in the Mexico paddock that this is actually the standard sanction for such a transgression per the penalty range guidelines given to the stewards.

Verstappen and Red Bull have disputed the pair of 10s penalties he was given for his actions fighting Norris

Photo by: Simon Galloway / Motorsport Images

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Yet Red Bull motorsport advisor Helmut Marko claimed “it’s a reaction to all the incidents that took place in Austin” – the combination of Verstappen’s total penalty count at play.

But the explanation of why this was objectively harsher than Norris’s five-second penalty for overtaking outside track limits in that Austin clash is because there the stewards are understood to have applied mitigating circumstances from Verstappen’s apex diving.

This time, with no doubt Norris was ahead at the apex of Turn 4, Verstappen still shoved him wide.

Post-race, Red Bull team boss Christian Horner offered more deflection defence. He claimed Norris was “15km/h faster and later on the brakes than his fastest lap” and “wouldn’t have made the corner” and presented a print off of GPS traces of Norris’s quickest lap of the race, overlaid with those from the clash with Verstappen.

“Can the rules be better? Maybe yes, maybe not. It’s always the same thing. I just drive how I think I have to drive” Max Verstappen

“He would’ve run off track,” Horner added. “You can see from his onboard steering and of course, at this point in the race, he’s got probably 80kg more fuel than at the point that he’s done his done his fastest lap [on lap 68, when Norris didn’t have DRS as he did when attacking Verstappen].”

But not only is Norris’s trajectory from his onboard feed indicating he would have made the corner had he not been forced off, the GPS trace data Motorsport.com has seen of other Norris laps skews Horner’s braking point claim because Norris braked not much later than he did on either the preceding lap nine or lap 11 afterwards and in both those cases made the corner.

He did, it should be noted, apply no lift and coast in the clash with Verstappen – slamming on the brakes as soon as he released the throttle as Turn 4 approached and, as with the Austin incident, Verstappen seemed to release the throttle differently to other laps rather than releasing his brakes. His dab of right-hand down was what put Norris on the grass.

Was the decision to heavily penalise Verstappen an after effect of the Austin clash?

Photo by: Red Bull Content Pool

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Post-race, having looked pretty chilled as he waited for space to open up in the written media pen area of the paddock – smiling and joking with a Red Bull press officer – Verstappen then gave rather clipped answers to questions from the scrum of journalists.

Here, Verstappen pointed out inconsistency in stewarding decisions from the last two weekends.

“At the end of the day, everyone speaks for themselves,” Verstappen said. “Can the rules be better? Maybe yes, maybe not. It’s always the same thing. I just drive how I think I have to drive. Last week that was all right, this week, 20-second penalty. That’s what it is. Life goes on.”

And he’s right – although only because the outcome was wrong in Austin. There, either Verstappen should have been sanctioned for forcing Norris off or no penalty handed to the McLaren driver. But, given the rules on overtaking off track are clearer, a suggestion that both being punished was the better Austin outcome came up time and again in the paddock in Mexico.

That inconsistency is precisely why it’s so important to draw a new line here – before the Qatar round in early December post-Interlagos and Vegas. This is where the FIA’s racing guidelines changes will be presented to the drivers again.

Given GPDA director George Russell claimed that “19 out of 20 [drivers], we’re all aligned on where it needs to be”, surely these will go through with the drivers’ body’s seal of approval.

He may still have a 47-point buffer over Norris, but Sunday’s action indicated that Verstappen won’t stop racing Norris that hard.

Verstappen still has a healthy points lead over Norris with four rounds to go despite the outcome in Mexico

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While that was of little doubt, the more worrying element was how Horner suggested Verstappen’s reaction to ‘clash one’ with Norris caused the second penalised incident.

“I think that was the frustration of potentially Lando not giving back the place,” he said. “Things, they only escalate.”

Well, they just shouldn’t and the Turn 7 clash was an even more egregious move, with Norris correct to call Verstappen out as “dangerous”.

So, to Brazil, with the spectre of Verstappen’s bitter 2021 race there with Hamilton having risen and hovering over the current title battle

McLaren team boss Andrea Stella revealed afterwards that the team has told Norris it approves and “confirm the way you go racing – it is not for you to go there and find justice yourself – you go racing in a fair, sportive way”.

Even Verstappen offered little defence of his second attack – saying only “Turn 7 is what it is”. This speaks volumes.

And so, to Brazil, with the spectre of Verstappen’s bitter 2021 race there with Hamilton having risen and hovering over the current title battle.

The debate over such moves will inevitably rumble on. But a line has been drawn here in Mexico and it is critical to F1’s future sporting health that it is preserved.

As F1 rumbles on to Brazil next weekend, what will Sao Paulo produce?

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Max Verstappen could be set for an engine change grid penalty at this weekend’s Brazilian Grand Prix, with Red Bull worried about his lack of straightline speed.

The Dutchman had a difficult time in the Mexico GP with engine problems during practice on Friday forcing an unprompted power unit switch for the rest of the weekend.

And while the use of his pool engine meant no further mechanical issues, its high mileage meant a decline in its performance and hampered the three-time world champion in the race.

Speed trap figures across the start/finish straight, before DRS is activated, showed Verstappen topped out at 251.4km/h – which was well adrift of team-mate Sergio Perez on 253.4km/h.

Verstappen was second slowest of all at the first intermediate trap, logging 299.6km/h compared to Perez on 303.1 and title rival Lando Norris on 307.9km/h.

With Red Bull already on the back foot with its RB20 struggling to match the race form of Ferrari and McLaren, the team knows it probably needs to commit to a fresh power unit to help boost Verstappen’s hopes – and Interlagos makes sense because it is a track where overtaking is easier.

While the key talking point after the race for Verstappen was on his penalties for driving infringements against Norris, Red Bull says that the lack of speed is a much bigger worry.

Red Bull motorsport advisor Helmut Marko told Motorsport.com: “More alarming is that we couldn’t make the tyres work – both medium and hard.

Max Verstappen, Red Bull Racing RB20, Carlos Sainz, Ferrari SF-24

Photo by: Simon Galloway / Motorsport Images

“We were nowhere near the two front teams, and I guess part of the problem is that Friday, we couldn’t drive because of the engine problems.

“We have to do something, that’s clear. We also will have a change the engine because we had been so slow on the straight.

“This engine, which was in the car, was not supposed to be in the car, so most likely Brazil could happen.”

Speaking to Austrian broadcaster ORF, Marko said that the engine Verstappen used in the Mexico race had only been intended to be used in practice sessions for the remainder of the campaign.

“The engine we had in there was no longer intended for the race, and the older an engine gets, the more its performance diminishes,” he said.

“The penalty would be five places. That wouldn’t be so severe in Brazil, for example, where you can overtake relatively easily. But we saw that we were missing three to eight km/h on the straights.”

Verstappen currently holds a 47-point advantage over Norris in the standings, and any engine penalty would only mean a grid drop for the main grand prix rather than the sprint race that Brazil will host on the Saturday.

VR46 has announced that Andrea Iannone will return to MotoGP for the first time since 2019, replacing Fabio di Giannantonio in this weekend’s Malaysian Grand Prix.

The news was made official on Monday morning, as di Giannantonio prepares to undergo a surgery on the left shoulder he broke in Austria in mid-August, leaving him out of action for the last two races of the year.

His substitute Iannone, now 35-years-old, previously spent seven seasons competing in the premier class, including four within the Ducati fold. The highlight of that stint a sole victory in 2016 at the Red Bull Ring, the first for the Borgo Panigale marque since Casey Stoner’s string of success in 2010.

But in 2019, coincidentally in Malaysia, Iannone tested positive for Drostanolone, an anabolic steroid present on the list of prohibited substances of the World Anti-Doping Agency.

He was sanctioned with a period of disqualification of one-and-a-half years, which was later extended to four years by the Court of Arbitration (CAS).

He was riding for Aprilia at that point in 2019, having joined the then-struggling Noale marque on a two-year deal.

Andrea Iannone, Team Go Eleven

Photo by: Ducati Corse

It wasn’t until the start of 2024 that the Italian could make a comeback in professional motorcycle racing, joining the satellite Go Eleven Ducati team in the World Superbike Championship.

Having impressed on production-based machinery this year with victory in Aragon and eighth-place finish in the standings, Iannone has been given a chance to return to MotoGP 1814 days after his last appearance in the series.

Ducati was considering a number of riders to replace di Giannantonio, who timed his surgery in a way that will put him in the best possible position for pre-season testing in 2025. But VR46, under the decisive influence of team owner Valentino Rossi, has taken a more eye-catching route.

The Italian, who will continue with Go Eleven in WSBK next year, is also in contention to ride one of VR46’s GP23 bikes in next month’s Valencia finale.

Iannone is being drafted into the team at a time when di Giannantonio feels he is performing at the optimum level, despite the injured shoulder.

“It’s a bummer to stop now, as I’m feeling better than ever this season, I think I’m at my best,” he said after finishing a strong fourth in Sunday’s wet-weather Thailand Grand Prix.

Di Giannantonio has been one of the revelations of the year and his speed has been recognised by Ducati, which has signed him directly to its factory roster for 2025.

He will be the only rider other than factory team duo Marc Marquez and Francesco Bagnaia to be allowed to run the latest-spec GP25 bike in 2025.

“‘It’s very important to be fully recovered for the first test at Sepang in February, so I’m going to have surgery this week,” said the 26-year-old. “That way I will meet the deadlines set by the doctors.”

Lando Norris believes Formula 1 title rival Max Verstappen “got what he had coming to him” after his on-track conduct was dealt with severely by the Mexico Grand Prix stewards.

As the Red Bull Racing driver struggled for pace, he dropped from the lead into the clutches of third-placed Norris and, on lap 10, the Briton made his move.

Unlike in the controversial incident a week prior in Austin, Norris ensured his front axle was ahead of Verstappen’s at the apex of Turn 4, meaning he had to be given racing room.

However, Verstappen drove to the white line, forcing Norris off the track. Cutting the grass, the McLaren driver gained a position off the track, but was soon forced to take avoiding action when, at Turn 8, Verstappen lunged wildly on Norris, again forcing both drivers off the track and retaking second position.

Max Verstappen, Red Bull Racing RB20

Photo by: Sam Bloxham / Motorsport Images

For both instances, Verstappen received 10-second penalties – the first for forcing another driver off the track, and the second for leaving the track and gaining an advantage.

“I don’t think I need to say much,” said Norris. “I think it’s pretty self-explanatory on what happened.

“I did everything I’ve been told in terms of what the rules are and the guidelines and all of this stuff, yet it just wasn’t to be and, of course, he got some penalties for that.”

Regarding the lengths he believes Verstappen would go to topple his title challenge, Norris added: “I go into every race expecting a tough battle with Max.

“It’s clear that it doesn’t matter if he wins or second, his only job is to beat me in the race, and he’ll sacrifice himself to do that, like he did today [Sunday].

“But I want to have good battles with him. I want to have those tough battles, like I’ve seen him have plenty of times. But fair ones.

“It’s always going to be on the line. It’s always going to be tough with Max. He’s never going to make anyone’s life easy, especially mine at this point of the year. But I think today was just… It was not fair, clean racing, and therefore, I think he got what he had coming to him.”

Ahead of the Qatar Grand Prix, discussions will take place between the FIA, the single seater commission and the Grand Prix Drivers’ Association to discuss potential changes to guidelines used as rules of engagement.

These will then be discussed with drivers in Qatar before being implemented potentially for that weekend and the season finale in Abu Dhabi.

George Russell has suggested that “19 out of 20” drivers are aligned on what Formula 1’s racing guidelines should be and was pleased to see “unfair” racing manoeuvres penalised at the Mexican Grand Prix.

Russell, who serves as a director of the Grand Prix Drivers’ Association, has been vocal on the need for the drivers, stewards and the FIA to discuss the current guidelines on racing in the wake of the US Grand Prix’s contentious battle between Max Verstappen and Lando Norris.

Speaking in Mexico, where the two championship contenders once again came under scrutiny for their on-track actions – Verstappen penalised 20 seconds for two violations –  Russell said that he expected the stewards to continue to take a hard-line approach.

He revealed that all but one driver was happy for the stewards to change their approach with penalising certain incidents immediately after Austin, rather than wait until 2025 for new guidelines.

“I think the stewards are totally on board with what needs to change,” Russell said.

“Our view is…I think the biggest discussion is they wanted to wait until ’25, so it’s something consistent through this year. I would say 19 out of 20 drivers said, ‘well, if it’s incorrect, make the change today’.

“And I’m glad to see those incidents were punished and I suspect moving forward in Brazil what we saw today [Sunday] and what we saw last week [in Austin] you won’t be able to get away with.

“You presume [it should be easy to change if everyone agrees], but it sometimes seems more difficult than it has to be when things have to get approved and we’ve got to go to a vote app. But as I said, 19 out of 20, we’re all aligned on where it needs to be.”

George Russell, Mercedes F1 W15, Lewis Hamilton, Mercedes F1 W15

Photo by: Simon Galloway / Motorsport Images

Russell pointed to his own battle with team-mate Lewis Hamilton as “hard and fair” racing, in which the younger Briton held off his team-mate until the start of the 66th lap.

He also had his say on the Verstappen/Norris incident, stating that the Dutchman’s Turn 7 move – in which he carried significant overspeed into the corner and ran Norris off – was something he hadn’t seen since Verstappen’s move on Hamilton at Brazil in 2021.

“It was nice to have the battle and it’s always good when you fight with Lewis because it’s hard and fair,” Russell said.

“At the moment you’re seeing a number of manoeuvres that are just…it’s getting beyond entertaining or beyond sporting, it’s just almost unfair to a point now.

“You can argue the first one was maybe 60-40. The last one, I’ve not seen anything like that since probably Brazil [2021].”