F1 live: The Mexico City Grand Prix as it happens

The gap from leader Sainz to Leclerc in second has closed again, down to 6.3s now. 

Norris keeping within five seconds of Leclerc for now, with Ferrari getting the wet weather tyres ready just in case.

A second stop for Perez and he returns to the track in 17th - last of the remaining runners. But with new mediums, how close to the points could he come?

Verstappen again complains of no grip on his hard tyres, he is losing time to Hamilton ahead and will have to focus on Piastri charging behind at this rate.

As Alex has quipped from the track, Russell has complained about drops on his visor, but has he got the sweat issues as he did in Spain last year?

Piastri has a double dose of DRS on the run to Turn 1, watches as Gasly takes Bottas, and then takes the Sauber himself on the run to Turn 4. 

Following his stop, Piastri is now on a charge. 12th currently, he is directly behind Bottas and Gasly. 

On the dark clouds and rain threat - Aston Martin performance director Tom McCullough told us earlier that any rain that was going to come close wasn’t predicted to hit the track.

Unsurprisingly, the cameras quickly turned to Helmut Marko after Lawson took the current Red Bull driver. 

Verstappen is struggling on his tyres - his laptimes are some eight-tenths to a second down on the leaders...

With DRS, Lawson pulls past Perez with ease having just pitted. That was for 16th. 

Verstappen: "It's getting really dark."

The clouds are rolling in and there is rain in the distance, but GP Lambiase insists it won't affect the race.

Perez vs Lawson round two is upon us. This time, Lawson is the man on the hunt. 

"Something is wrong with the steering," reports Colapinto from ninth. He describes it as fluctuating between feeling stiff and soft. A possible power steering issue. 

Lap 40 and McLaren decides it's time to box Piastri from sixth. That clears the road for Verstappen.

Leclerc has shaved a second off Sainz’s lead - these hard tyres can be tricky to get warm and stay warm, but then Norris is also pushing hard behind. Leclerc and Norris in high 1m20s where Sainz is low 1m21s.

Verstappen is currently seventh after passing Lawson, but is complaining that his hard compound tyres aren't working.

The only driver ahead who is yet to stop is Piastri. 

Sainz has called for Ferrari to check his data after hearing a "misfire" out of T3.

That's a major worry at altitude for the race leader.

Russell radioed his team a short while ago to check the front wing. There is definitely damage on his front left wing flap.

Norris having two track limits strikes around his clashes with Verstappen earlier - if the stewards here do as the ones in Austin did, they won’t count if he gets more as twice he was forced off by Verstappen.

Norris is getting on with his job - the gap to Leclerc down to 4.7s early in this phase of the race. 

Leclerc has stabilised the gap to Sainz, so that's genuine pace from Norris.

Hamilton attacks Piastri now into T1 and that was like candy from a baby.

That's extra breathing room to Verstappen behind, who is charging.

Lawson did a fabulous job to defend into the first three corners but Piastri dived to the inside at T4, which put the RB out of position and allowed Hamilton up into sixth.

"Mate think about pulling me out of this ****."

Piastri isn't happy with how his race is transpiring as he ends up three wide into T1 with Lawson and Hamilton, who has joined the party.

Russell crucially picks off Piastri and Lawson in consecutive corners.

"Why have we done this? Surely we could have done one or two laps more?" A valid point after that needless battle.

And Sainz completes the main pitstops a lap later - lap 33's start - to consolidate his lead.

The leader had pleaded for an extra lap, but that was the sensible thing to do.

A simple DRS pass on Bottas and Verstappen is up to ninth. Colapinto is up next. 

Leclerc rejoins in second but Russell comes out right behind the Lawson/Piastri battle, which is now for P4 on the road.

Indeed he does stop, a good stop as well from the Ferrari mechanics.

Russell also stops for Mercedes.

The Autosport team on the ground in Mexico have reported that Alonso was forced to retire due to having debris in his front-left brake duct. 

On a track where temperatures are always a concern, an issue of this nature is usually terminal. 

That will likely lead to a pit stop from Leclerc in the next couple of laps.

Here's Norris into the pits, likely covering Hamilton's stop.

He's done that easily, returning in fourth as Magnussen also pits behind.

The Ferraris have responded to Norris getting free air. Sainz stretches to eight seconds ahead of Leclerc, who is seven ahead of Norris.

Verstappen closes on Ocon and uses DRS to blast comfortably past into Turn 1. He's now 11th as Hulkenberg stops and drops back. 

Verstappen is starting to make moves, but it's going to be a very difficult task to make too much progress given how hard the Red Bull is on its tyres this weekend. He passes Zhou for 13th - further aided by Gasly's stop. 

Hamilton is the next of the frontrunners to pit. To put into context how far ahead that has put him ahead of Verstappen, he is in 10th, some six seconds ahead.

With Verstappen out of the way, Norris is on a mission to close the gap to Leclerc.

Sainz is seven seconds ahead of Leclerc, who is 6.5s ahead of Norris. Russell is another seven seconds down the road.

Verstappen and Perez are 15th and 16th for Red Bull on lap 28/71. Who had this on their bingo card?

Red Bull took no chances with that hold though, the team didn't want an extra penalty for failure to follow procedure. 

Norris is right on Verstappen's gearbox through the stadium but the Dutchman pits.

Here comes the long, long wait. This feels like an eternity.

Eventually, he leaves on a set of hards but all the way down behind Ocon in P15.

Verstappen living by his famous sword there - at Turn 4 Norris was much closer (and seemed ahead at apex) compared to Austin Turn 12. Max needed to compromise, but as is his style, he just wouldn’t. Turn 8 was more egregious - he was fully off the track overtaking and surprised Red Bull didn’t order him to give it back