Lewis Hamilton misses out on potential win in Mexico: “We didn’t choose the right tyre strategy in hindsight”

Mercedes-AMG Petronas F1 Team’s Lewis Hamilton finished in second place at the Mexican Grand Prix after a competitive weekend for the team at Autodromo Hermanos Rodriguez. 

In contention for a possible win after a solid start, Hamilton said that his tyre strategy– which saw him start on mediums and switch to hards– was not the optimal choice and hindered his ability to battle Max Verstappen for the top spot.

“It was a good race for me today, although we didn’t choose the right tyre strategy in hindsight. Nonetheless, to be this close to Red Bull makes me very proud of my team and I’m very grateful to them for the hard work they’ve put in to keep on moving us forward.”

Red Bull Racing ended up having a pace advantage to Mercedes on race day, having implemented the better tyre strategy. Hamilton said that the soft-starters had the upper hand, ultimately able to move onto the more competitive mediums rather than the hard tyres, which proved to be a difficult race tyre.  

“The race pace generally was quite good, but we were offset on tyres for most of the race. Maybe we should have started on the soft, but obviously we went for the medium, then took the hard to make the one stop work; it looked pretty good on the first stint, but then the Red Bull was just too quick for us – and had the better tyre strategy today as well.”

Despite missing out on a potential victory, Hamilton was excited to see the team in such competitive shape and optimistic about their chances for the final races of the season. 

“Congratulations to Max on his win and it feels great to be back up on the podium here in Mexico. We’re getting closer to the front, and we will continue to push. The last couple of races, we’ve taken a big step forward with the car and I hope we will continue like this for the final two.”

“I couldn’t get the hard tyre working as there was just no grip.” – George Russell

Team-mate George Russell finished in fourth place after starting third, and also struggled to make the hard compound tyres work. Having given his team much push-back for the selection mid-race, Russell said that the team will need to reflect on why their rivals made the better judgment.  

“I had a good start but lost two positions in the first lap and our strategy with medium – hard was not the right one in hindsight. I couldn’t get the hard tyre working as there was just no grip.”

“Red Bull and Ferrari both started on the softs and we need to understand why the other teams opted for the soft as that looked like the right strategy for this race. So that’s clearly our learning for today, as we might have been able to get closer, being on the same strategy.”

Russell was, however, happy to see the team make such great gains in Mexico, with pace that matched or bested that of Red Bull and Scuderia Ferrari throughout the weekend. Though he doesn’t think they’ll be able to match Mexico, he looks forward to making an impact at the Brazilian Grand Prix.

“Nevertheless, as a team we’re making progress and I’m very happy about that. I’m intrigued to see how Brazil goes, although I don’t think we will be quite as competitive as in Mexico, but still a huge positive takeaway from this weekend and a great job by the whole team.”