In Mexico City, George Russell struggled with a brake problem and finished sixth, while Lewis Hamilton had an incredible run to finish second behind Max Verstappen. watch live on Sky Sports F1 this Friday to witness every session of the year’s final Sprint event in Sao Paulo.
Despite starting from sixth on the grid, Lewis Hamilton finished behind Max Verstappen in the Mexico City Grand Prix and was praised for his “amazing” second place finish.
Mercedes’ inability to get its tires into the ideal operating window during qualifying left Hamilton disappointed on Saturday. However, in the race, the W14 found a more satisfactory balance.
The result reignited Hamilton’s hopes of denying Red Bull a first-ever one-two in the drivers’ championship, with his deficit to second-placed Sergio Perez reduced to 20 points after the Mexican retired from his home race.
“Honestly, I just wasn’t expecting that. It’s just always a great feeling when you are just putting one foot in front of the other and progressing,” Hamilton told Sky Sports F1.
The weekend had been really difficult compared to the last race where we had just hit the ground running. This weekend I was really digging deep to try and get the set-up right and I think we did a great job.
It was a challenging qualifying session, and my goal for the day was to finish ahead of the Ferraris in order to maintain the constructors’ [position].
It’s incredible how far you’ve come in the race’s early going to be in the running for a podium and then a second place. With the race, I am incredibly happy.”
After a collision with Charles Leclerc, Perez was forced to retire, giving Hamilton a starting position.
He overtook Daniel Ricciardo for fourth after 10 laps but got stuck behind Carlos Sainz, who had just enough pace to keep the Mercedes driver at bay.
Hamilton undercut Sainz, so was in third place when the race was stopped by a red flag after Kevin Magnussen’s big crash at Turn 8 at the halfway point of the Grand Prix.
Mercedes bravely put Hamilton on medium tyres for the restart, whereas the other leading runners were on hards. It paid off though as the seven-time world champion made a daring move on the inside of Leclerc, briefly putting two wheels off the track to get past the Ferrari driver and take second place.
“I think the car is just quite peaky in qualifying on light fuel, but when you put a load of fuel in the car, it just feels nicer to drive and I think we struck a really nice set-up this weekend and particularly today for the race,” Hamilton continued, going into further detail about the improvements made by the W14 since Saturday.
“Aside from that, excellent tyre management. All in all, I liked it. It’s not the most physically demanding race because you have to coast for 200–300 meters to keep the car cool and prevent failure instead of pushing all the way.”
Wolff: Brilliant drive from Hamilton
It was the second successive event where Hamilton has shown strong pace, after he pushed Verstappen close for the win in Austin, only to be disqualified for excessive plank wear.
Mercedes team principal Toto Wolff was impressed by Hamilton’s performance, especially on the medium tyres in the second half of the race as the 38-year-old set the fastest lap of the race on his final circuit.
“The smile on our face is because the car was strong. Once Lewis was in free air, we had so much margin in the medium. The lap times were good and fastest lap at the end,” Wolff told Sky Sports F1.
“It’s been a few weekends now where we say we ‘could have’ but didn’t. I think we need to qualify better. Probably with the straight-line speed we wouldn’t have been so competitive against Max, but who knows, the pace is there.
“It was a brilliant, brilliant drive from Lewis. We have these oscillations in performance and we don’t really know sometimes if the tyres stick. Just a few degrees of track temperature and you are out of the window.
Russell explains ‘terrible’ end to race
George Russell, in the other Mercedes, had a frustrating race as he found himself on the back foot when stuck behind Oscar Piastri in the opening stages stint.
After coming out of his first pit stop in traffic and finishing seventh when the race resumed under the red flag, Russell was not happy with the timing of the stop.
He passed Piastri and Ricciardo, but Sainz, who played excellent defense to maintain fourth place, was too strong for him to pass.
Russell lost ground to a charging Lando Norris and overheated his brakes during this battle, finishing half a second ahead of Ricciardo at the checkered flag in sixth place.
“The last 20 laps were terrible,” Russell said.
“The pace was really strong after the red flag. I felt really good in the car, I was right behind Carlos and just couldn’t quite make the overtake, then my brakes overheated and we were concerned we wouldn’t make it at the end and I had to back off.
“As soon as I did that, I lost all the temperature in my tyres and I could never recover it and it was like driving on ice.