Lewis Hamilton admits there was nothing more Mercedes could have done to beat a “far superior” Red Bull in the Mexican Grand Prix.
Mercedes secured a surprise front row lockout in Saturday’s qualifying session at the Autodromo Hermanos Rodriguez having been as much as four tenths slower than Red Bull in practice.
But its advantage quickly disappeared when Max Verstappen out-braked both Mercedes’ to grab the lead at Turn 1, before going on to take a dominant victory and extend his points lead over Hamilton.
Hamilton struggled to match Verstappen’s pace throughout the race and instead fought off a late attack from the other Red Bull of Sergio Perez, but held on to finish in second place.
Polesitter Valtteri Bottas was spun round by Daniel Ricciardo on Lap 1 and was unable to mount a fightback, coming home 15th but stealing fastest lap from Verstappen on the last lap.
Back-to-back wins for Verstappen sees him head to Brazil 19 points ahead of Hamilton in the drivers’ standings, and the seven-time world champion conceded Mercedes just didn’t have the pace to compete with Red Bull.
“Their car is far superior this weekend, and there’s nothing really we could do about it,” Hamilton said.
“I gave my absolutely everything, and even obviously a great fight with Sergio at the end. But I’m really grateful I did get second.”
Hamilton came under pressure from Perez in the closing stages with the Mexican running a long first stint, closing a nine-second gap to be within DRS range in the final laps.
Hamilton felt the speed in which Perez was able to close up on him showed the pace advantage Red Bull had in race trim.
Speaking about having to deal with Perez’s pressure, Hamilton said: “I’ve had that many times before, so it was easy to just hold on.
“But it just shows how fast their car was, when Sergio was that close behind me and able to pull that close.
“He did a great job. He was applying that pressure and just kept going. But I really enjoyed the race still.”
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