The Day Lewis Hamilton Secured His Fourth Title! | 2017 Mexico City Grand Prix | Extended Highlights

Welcome along then to round 18 of this Formula 1 season in 2017. And it could be the championship decider down Mexico way. Following on from John Surtees in 1964 and Graham Hill in 1968. Could Lewis Hamilton become the third British driver to win his World Championship at this great track? So then, lap 1000 of the season is our first lap here today. And it's lights out and away we go and Vettel gets away very well indeed. Lewis Hamilton hot on his tail and Max Verstappen tries to cover him off. Valtteri Bottas has Kimi Räikkönen for company. Verstappen breaks the toe and now he's going wheel-to-wheel with Vettel. Hamilton's coming up on the outside as well. Vettel into Turn 1. Verstappen round the outside. Hamilton in third place. Verstappen and Vettel touch once again. But this time Vettel picks up a little bit of damage as his front wing there touches Verstappen. And there's more carbon fibre on the track. Yes, it's an awful start for Vettel. He's got a lot of damage already. Will he have damaged the right rear tyre of Max Verstappen? Valtteri Bottas in a second and Hamilton's got problems. Hamilton's got a puncture on his right rear tyre. Hamilton and Sebastian Vettel coming together. This is an awful start for Lewis Hamilton. Who's going to have to now try and limp back to the pits? There's Stoffel van Doorn overtaking him in the McLaren and the Saab and then at Marcus Ericsson. I've got a flat tyre, I've got a flat tyre. Copy, copy Lewis. So box, box, box, box. It's a very short lap so it's less pain than normal he's got getting back. But of course he'll be way out the back of the field as well. It seems as if Verstappen's tyre withstood the impact but Hamilton's tyre didn't. Yeah, Vettel and Hamilton coming together. Vettel hit Hamilton, that's what caused the puncture. Verstappen's out of the lead from Valtteri Bottas, from Sebastian Vettel. Vettel is coming in for a nose change as you can see because of the damage to the front left part of his front wing. Remember, Vettel needs two victories and a second place to keep his championship hopes alive. Lewis Hamilton, his race has taken an awful battering but in the terms of the championship it is still advantage Hamilton. So Verstappen braves it out. And that's the first touch. Yeah, now Lewis fancies a piece of this action. Is this where the next piece of damage comes in? It has to be, isn't it? I wondered if the two Mercedes actually touched on the way into Turn 1. And this is good stuff from Verstappen because it would be very easy to slot in there. And he's like, no, I'm coming around. They touch tyres. He's got a look. It's amazing Verstappen didn't get a puncture. It's not at all amazing that Hamilton did. What's happened to Daniel Ricciardo? I would imagine this. And I wouldn't imagine this is a scheduled pit stop unless Red Bull think that they can get him to the end of the race. No, no, this is not a scheduled pit stop at all. Ricciardo becomes the first retirement it looks like. Fernando Alonso going wheel-to-wheel. Oh, with Romain Grosjean. You were right on that one, Crofty. It was wheel-to-wheel. Yeah, and making rather a dent in the side pod of Grosjean. And there goes Vettel under braking round the corner with Felipe Massa. Now he's gone off the track and he's gone ahead. Hand it straight back. Because he was kind of forced that way by Felipe Massa. He wasn't ahead of Felipe Massa. He is now ahead of Felipe Massa. And whilst the stewards are looking at Alonso and Grosjean for leaving the track and gaining an advantage, I dare say they're going to want to look at that one as well. We're on board with Sebastian Vettel. I think 14th place might be going to the Ferrari in a couple of moments time. He fancies this to Sebastian Vettel down the inside and he makes it quite easily indeed. There goes Vettel again on Romain Grosjean. No signs there that the Haas driver was prepared to let Vettel pass. Oh, and that's the Renault of Nico Hülkenberg. He's out of this race. Very suddenly indeed. Stop the car, please, Nico. Stop the car. The car is not safe, Nico. The car is not safe. You need to get out by climbing onto the front of the car and jumping off. Perez on Magnussen now. Perez down the inside on Kevin Magnussen. This could get a bit tasty. The crowd go wild as Sergio Perez moves up into sixth place. Magnussen hasn't pitted yet. Perez has. Felipe Massa on the soft compound tyre would be like to pick off a little bit of scraps here. Romain Grosjean, Pierre Gasly and then Felipe Massa. Look how dusty it is offline. Gasly's going to go for this. Pulls out alongside Romain Grosjean. Pierre Gasly makes his move on Romain Grosjean. That was very nice indeed. Grosjean comes back to fight a little bit more. That could get Massa even further interested. There was no touch between Gasly and Grosjean, but there wasn't much width between them. And now on board with Massa down to the next braking zone and heavy braking zone. He's going down the inside on Romain Grosjean. He's already had a great battle here with Sebastian Vettel on this occasion. Massa not forcing the other driver off the track. But what is going on ahead? Somebody's smoking in the last three corners. And it is the Toro Rosso of Brendan Hartley. Right, I'm losing a lot of power. Stop the car, Brendan. Stop the car in a safe place. Stop the car. This has been the worst weekend possible for teams running Renault engines. Hartley out. Hulkenberg out. Ricciardo out. Virtual safety car. So they all go around at the same speed. What Vettel and Hamilton need is an actual safety car. So they form a snake behind the safety car that brings them right back into play. They haven't got one. They've got a virtual safety car. Verstappen's pitting, of course. It's a cheap pit stop because they're all going slowly. You're not in the pit while they're at full speed. Keep the delta positive means your earliest time of arrival under a virtual safety car. Make sure you don't cut that and get yourself a penalty. But they probably can go a little bit faster than they would on track by taking this pit stop and using the 80 kilometers an hour down the pit lane. Hamilton was in a very good position to get a pit stop. Sebastian Vettel is still about half a lap away from the pits. Still seemed a long stop for Hamilton, didn't it? Maybe they were looking at the floor. Or maybe they're also just checking the radiator ducts or the brake ducts are clear as well. Räikkönen pits. Now he had got himself a nice gap to Esteban Ocon anyway. Because Ferrari didn't have any new super softs left. They had to put a new set of softs on. Kimi Räikkönen has jumped Esteban Ocon then in this pit stop window. Payback time now. We'd like your guy out of the way. I would imagine there's an overrider when they supply engines. Don't just jump out of the way. But don't make our lives unnecessarily hard in these circumstances. Well, he's not moving out of the way. Is he making life unnecessarily hard? No. It was an open invitation, shall we say, there to Sebastian Vettel. And then the cars just overheat so much more when they're following closely behind. Hamilton has decided he's had enough of being behind Pierre Gasly and makes the move on the Frenchman. He's out now into 13th place. He's got to do it. He's got to drill him this time. Well, Ericsson's moved over a little bit to the right. He's left a gap for Hamilton to go down the inside. Hamilton does go down the inside. Passes Marcus Ericsson. So he is now up into 12th place. Can he get a really good exit out of Turn 2? And put some pressure here on Sergio Perez down towards the next heavy braking zone. And he's close enough. Is he going to go from that far back? Yes, he is. Down the inside goes Vettel. Locks up. Goes wide. Stays on the track. Nice move from Sebastian Vettel to get past Sergio Perez and up into 6th place. Let's just have a look here as Hamilton has Stoffel van Dorn in his sights under braking. Heavy braking too. Hamilton manages to get past Sebastian Vettel with DRS. And Lance Stroll's looking in his mirrors to see where the Ferrari is. And he's right behind you, Lance. And now he's going to pull over to the right-hand side. He does. He goes down the inside and sensibly. I think Lance Stroll rather doesn't pick a fight with Sebastian Vettel and doesn't defend too strongly either. Here goes Hamilton on Massa trying to go around the outside. Massa's not made that easy for him at all. Hamilton still manages it. Sebastian Vettel on Esteban Ocon down towards the braking zone. At the end of the main straight, Vettel goes down the inside and Ocon. And that was an awful lot easier than it might have looked at one stage. Sebastian Vettel up into 4th place while the extinguishers come out for Marcus Ericsson. And that is another Renault retiring from this race. That's a double retirement for Renault. I think Lewis is getting the hurry up now. You'll see in his mirrors some other cars coming. He's got to get this move done. Alonso went to defend there. He's forced Hamilton round the outside. And they're going wheel-to-wheel. Hamilton really does have to yield there to Fernando Alonso because the last thing he wants is a second puncture in this race. And Alonso was mightily close to him. Now with DRS. And Alonso's got his DRS open as well. Can he have a go round the outside into Turn 4? No. Alonso with some great defending. Positioning his car perfectly there. Here goes Hamilton trying again. And he's going to try round the outside again. Heavy braking into Turn 1. And this time Fernando Alonso and Hamilton do touch. And there was damage to one of the cars. I think it was from the right-hand side of Hamilton's Mercedes. Alonso forcing him round the outside. Not making it easy at all. But now Hamilton with DRS goes down towards Turn 4. Gets ahead of Fernando Alonso. And Alonso fights back. Hamilton is forced wide. Now has the inside line. Didn't leave the track fully. That's great driving from Lewis Hamilton. Great defending from Fernando Alonso. What a show those two have put on for 9th place. Talk us through this one again, Martin. So Alonso's got the inside line. Just releases the brake pressure to grab the high ground. More and more contact. Lewis comes out on the inside. A little bit more power. DRS wide open. And one of those cars could have flown through the air. What do you think? He went off the track on the overtaking? Or he was okay? It was good racing. But fair racing. No, he didn't actually go off the track. Did he in there? You've got to have all four wheels off the track. Yeah. There were two of them. Yeah, he was nowhere near off the track. It wasn't like Vettel earlier on. And let's look to the future while we savour the present as well. Max Verstappen out in front. Another superlative drive. From this young Dutchman. Hamilton himself says he's excited about many more battles to come in the future. We're excited about that as well. And on a day where he started on the front row, Max Verstappen, from the disappointment of Austin, has come to Mexico City seven days later and has really made it count. It is a third win in Formula One for the Dutchman. Max Verstappen wins the Mexican Grand Prix for Red Bull. It is another victory. It is another superb drive for Max Verstappen. Valtteri Bottas and Kimi Räikkönen will come home to take the final podium spots. Hamilton in a minute will be crowned a world champion, Martin. And from the council estate in Stevenage to the luxury apartments in Monaco, he has very much made his mark in this sport and deserves each one of the four titles. He's still having a look at P8, but he doesn't really need to. There's nowhere to overtake in this stadium section anyway, but it's good enough. He's done enough today. Spare a thought for Sebastian Vettel, whose championship challenge has seen him top the table for the majority of this season. But since the summer break, Hamilton has been formidable. He has been the force and he crosses the line now to become the four-time world champion. Lewis Hamilton does it in 2017. And he can scarcely believe what has happened for this season. It has been magnificent, maybe not this afternoon, but certainly over the course of the campaign and very definitely since the summer break. Sebastian Vettel comes home to finish in fourth place. Esteban Ocon with a fifth place finish equals his best in Formula One ahead. And Lance Stroll, happy birthday to him. In Mexico comes seventh ahead of Magnussen and then Hamilton in ninth. And Fernando Alonso completing the points. And Mercedes have done it again. It is the quadruple double. Four constructors, four drivers, world championships in succession. Get in there, Lewis. Champion of the world. Lewis, this is Toto. Not the race he wanted, but who cares? Congratulations, four-time world champion. Thank you, Lewis. Thank you, Lewis. Thank you, thank you, thank you. Four-time, thank you. I'd like to say a big thanks to everyone in this team. What you've done the past couple of years is just remarkable and I'm just so grateful for your hard work this year. God bless you. He's not going to disappoint. We do get a few donuts as well. Hamilton is world champion in 2017.