Hamilton fights Red Bull alone: 'Unfortunately Russell was overtaken'

Hamilton saw another chance of victory go up in smoke at the Mexican GP. The Mercedes driver rode on Max Verstappen's tail for a long time, but then saw it disappear on the horizon on mediums. Hamilton himself drove on the hard tyre, which in hindsight proved not to be the right choice. Hamilton himself would have liked to extend his stint on mediums and then change to softs, but his team brought him in anyway.

Hamilton alone in the battle

''I kept telling them the tyre was fine, but I'm assuming that they were coming into my window. Sergio had already stopped. So I'm assuming they… they were going much quicker than me perhaps. So, if we stayed out longer, I would have come out behind Sergio and it would have been all over. So, I think that's the reason,'' Hamilton revealed at the press conference.

From P3, Perez had indeed been able to put down fast laps on the fresh mediums and, despite a poor pit stop, an undercut seemed possible. That Mercedes reacted prevented Perez from doing an undercut, but also prevented Hamilton from remaining a threat to Verstappen.

Mercedes' mistake

''Unfortunately, at the beginning, obviously had a good battle through Turns 1 and 2 but obviously my team-mate got jumped by Sergio, so I was basically tag-teamed by the Red Bulls. It’s very, very hard in strategy when you don’t have both cars there. I think Sergio was able to come in and pull me in, which definitely hindered our strategy.''

Mercedes' strategy proved a pain point in Mexico anyway, as the choice to start on the medium tyre was not the best in hindsight. Mercedes had never considered a one-stop strategy from softs to mediums, where Red Bull did keep that option open. This ultimately proved to be a major factor in the GP.