Hamilton on a clean fight with Russell: “I don’t think either of us are silly…”

Mercedes drivers Lewis Hamilton and George Russell demonstrated the correct way to compete for position in the Formula 1 Mexico City GP without any issues, even though they were informed that they could race each other freely.

Hamilton overtook Russell at the beginning, but Russell was able to regain the lead on lap 15.

Even with the front wing damage, Russell managed to stay in the lead until Hamilton overtook him in the final laps, resulting in them finishing in fourth and fifth positions at the end.

Hamilton was using the most recent floor while Russell was using the previous version, and they crossed the finish line only 3.7 seconds apart.

The fact that they spent time following each other gave both men a chance to assess the behaviour of the other car.

“I mean, it’s pretty straightforward,” said Hamilton when I asked him about the battle.

“I don’t think either of us are silly. George is really smart, and so it’s fair, and he’s just really good at where he places his car. And I think for me too.

“So when they come on the radio and say, ‘Keep it clean,’ it’s like, ‘Of course!’ It’s no real different to when you’re fighting anyone else, except for it is your team mate. So had to be double careful, because you both want to finish.”

Hamilton said he enjoyed the fight, although life was tough for him until he was able to make a wing adjustment at his pit stop.

“I had fun today,” he said. “Had a good start, had a really bad stint, took too much front wing out the car. Had massive, massive understeer. I was like, damn! Because you have to basically guesstimate where you’re going to be with the front wing. And I had a lot less than George.

with the front wing. And I had a lot less than George.

“For the laps to the grid, it felt like it was the right thing, and it was clearly not. Then after my stop, I was able to rectify it. And then after that, I had much better pace, and was able to push and keep going.

“And we stopped a little bit early as well, compared to what I planned to stop. And we got good points.”

Hamilton acknowledged that Russell didn’t make it easy for him to pass: “He didn’t! But I had 10 laps. I knew it was going to happen at some point. I think he had a problem with his front wing.

“But we got a lot of information. I could see on his car where he was better than me, and I’m sure, hopefully, be able to see where he’s better than me, package-wise. And hopefully they have lots of data, so we’ll figure out who starts on what next race.”

Regarding the debate about guidelines in Friday’s drivers’ briefing Hamilton said: “They spoke about it for a long time, with no conclusion. I think they said they’re going to sit down in one of the races coming up to talk about how we can go about making it better.”