Mexico seems to always give us a spicy race in GPVWC. Maybe it’s the local cuisine, maybe it’s the fact that it’s usually late in the season and more is riding on the result.
Qualifying showed that Brehm and Netrex had put together an excellent qualifying setup. Soltero and team mate Jasse Lahtinen locked out the front row for Brehm, with Soriano in P3.
Rouven Meschede was P4 on the grid for Optiminal, but as the lights went out he got a great launch, and then a huge slipstream on the run down to T1, to take the lead. Lucas Murno, who was P5 on the grid, was soon up there in the podium positions after overtaking Soltero on lap 2. The Brehms were suddenly P4 and P5.
At this point, Luke Mitchell was P8 having qualified P6 on the grid. However, the Englishman had clearly put together an excellent race setup, and was hanging on to the leading pack. On lap 7, Harry Smith binned it in front of him, losing the rear on the fast right hander coming in to the stadium section. P7 for Luke. Then, in turn 1 and 2, Lahtinen ran wide, left the track, came back on and sideswiped Norbert Jakab. In the space of a few corners, Mitchell was up to P5.
Meschede was leading by quite a lot at this point, over 4 seconds. The battle for P2 was heating up though, and Soltero and Murno started to trade places in the middle sector. This allowed Mitchell to catch, and Luke was suddenly within DRS.
Then on lap 12, disaster for Rouven Meschede. Our former championship leader just hasn’t had the rub of the green this season, but here in Mexico he quite literally threw away the lead, running wide at the final part of the esses and spinning into the barriers, ending his race.
And so, when Mitchell pitted on lap 14, with Mike Kwint following in for Lunarc, they were attempting to undercut for the lead. Kwint though completely messed up his pit entry and had to serve a drive through penalty for speeding.
Soltero and Soriano came out sandwiching Mitchell, and all three embarked upon a long battle for the win. Lucas Murno sadly disconnected behind them. Scott Mitchell-Malm was leading at this point on an alternative strategy, and showed the pace he had demonstrated at Monza. Scott was looking for his first points of the season.
Mitchell was still there, when he pitted with 20 laps to go. Soltero followed a lap later, whilst Soriano waited a further two laps. Luke jumped both of them and led, but it was clear that Soriano, who came out three seconds behind but on medium tyres, was hoping to gain the time back with the tyre delta.
So the race continued. For almost ten laps, Mitchell led, but Soriano caught up and saved his tyres in the mini-DRS train. At the beginning of lap 52, through went Soltero, down the inside into T1 to break the Kings’ driver’s heart. Soriano followed through down into T4.
Mitchell’s older tyres proved to be too much to hang onto, and the two Spaniards disappeared down the road. Then, on lap 58, Soriano went for the move, down the outside into T1, no doubt using P2P and DRS. Soltero was not done though, and he followed suit at the beginning of the final lap, so leading us into the controversial move.
Through he went into T1, but Soriano was side by side on the outside. They tried to go through T2 and T3 the same, but Soriano on the outside squeezed Soltero; Soltero himself was ambitious. It was about as 50/50 an incident that you’ll ever see. However, Soriano ended up losing out, and through snuck Mitchell for 2nd.
As such, it finished Soltero, Mitchell and Soriano on the podium.
Dawid Krupa, who was on an ambitious 3 stop strategy, finished 4th, with Puschke 5th for Draig after a relatively quiet battle with David Fidock, returning for Lunarc. Both drivers are former Superleague champions; they were actually consecutive champions a decade ago.
7th though, went to Scott Mitchell-Malm, who was overjoyed to get his first points of the season in an impressive drive.
After Meschede’s failure it means the championship is almost certainly going in Jose Soriano’s direction, and Netrex leading the teams’ championship by nearly 50 points means that it will be very difficult to catch them from there.
