Lewis Hamilton said he was relieved to salvage second place against a pair of much quicker Red Bulls during the Mexico City Grand Prix.
Mercedes locked out the front row of the grid but Max Verstappen swept past Hamilton and team mate Valtteri Bottas at the start of the race.Verstappen was able to cruise to the finish but still took the chequered flag 16 seconds ahead of his championship rival.
“Congratulations to Max,” said Hamilton after the race. “Their car is far superior this weekend and there’s nothing we really could do about it. I gave it absolutely everything.”
Hamilton spent the final laps of the race under sustained pressure from the second Red Bull of Sergio Perez. He held on to second place by little more than a second.
“Obviously a great fight with Sergio at the end,” he said. “I’m really grateful I was able to at least get a second.”
Perez wasn’t able to make an attempt to pass Hamilton, but was beginning to look for a way past as the race ended.
“The pressure, I’ve had that many times before, so it was easy just to hold on,” said Hamilton. “But it just shows how fast their car is when Sergio’s that close behind me and able to follow that closely.
“He did a great job, so he was applying that pressure and just kept going. But I really enjoyed the race, still.”
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hahostolze (@hahostolze)
7th November 2021, 21:19
Probably accurate. That Hamilton finished ahead of Perez was a bonus, at another Merc circuit it might not always be likewise.
erikje
7th November 2021, 21:27
Really an embarrassing remark.
NewVerstappenFan (@jureo)
7th November 2021, 21:36
Indeed Toto also blamed the machinery for result.
Brutal to the team, but it is the truth.
Mercedes managed to get pole and were then lucky to get Hamilton to salvage second.
It was very close a number of times, for Perez to get through, with his extra 100 Mexican fan power.
Euro Brun (@eurobrun)
7th November 2021, 23:50
Very back handed compliment to Perez. Not sure if it was meant to be as harsh as it sounded?
greasemonkey
8th November 2021, 1:15
While I am no fan of Lewis’ public personality in general, in this particular case, it was pretty clear he meant how close Sergio could follow in the dirty air. That is not the same as saying Sergio could only hang with him in general in a faster car.
Rich#4131
7th November 2021, 21:27
Congratulations to the winners.
mauro (@maurob)
7th November 2021, 21:32
this statement is the same thing that all non-Mercedes drivers from 2014 until recently could say
trib4udi (@trib4udi)
7th November 2021, 21:43
Except that Merc had even a much bigger pace advantage over these years than RB had this single weekend.
baasbas
7th November 2021, 21:41
Yeah that one didn’t come out right… I’m sure he meant that it was very difficult to follow another car, but Perez was able to anyway. But it sounded a lot worse
petebaldwin (@)
7th November 2021, 23:08
Definitely – the way he said it was “But it just shows how fast their car is when Sergio’s that close behind me….. able to follow that closely”. He was correcting himself because he realised what it sounded like and the crowd started booing. He meant he was able to get within a second and stay there for a few laps which won’t happen unless you have a car that is quick.
Jim Sharpe (@jms90h5)
7th November 2021, 21:44
So why do people say the races are boring when MB/Ham was winning most of the time but when Max is basically doing the same thing it’s somehow the best season ever? Yawn, just another RB/Ver easy win. No point in watching.
SjaakFoo (@sjaakfoo)
7th November 2021, 21:51
If you can’t see the difference between this season and the past 8 before that, then I guess you probably should find a new sport to watch.
Swifty (@theswift)
7th November 2021, 21:55
If you can see a massive difference, I’d suggest finding a new sport – HAM vs ROS was gripping, just as intense as this.
RandomMallard (@)
7th November 2021, 22:18
@theswift I agree. Hamilton and Rosberg was very exciting, however being a battle between 2 teammates it lacked some of the inter-team politics/excitement/controversy (is probably the best way to put it?) of fights such as this season and against Ferrari in 2017 and 2018, as well as the lack of a battle for the constructor’s title . And those fights against Ferrari were pretty good championship battles as well.
But I would argue that the last 2 championship fights before this year have been quite stable, both following the pattern of”Bottas starts well but quickly trails off to the point where Hamilton becoming champion is more of a formality than a battle”. And I’m not blaming Mercedes for that, because they’ve worked incredibly hard for it, but it can get quite dull for fans after a while.
But I think we should just celebrate the incredible battle we’ve had this year
jff
7th November 2021, 22:26
I still prefer a fight between two teams than between two drivers in the same team.
petebaldwin (@)
7th November 2021, 23:22
@theswift – Did you find today as well as the last 4 seasons boring or did you enjoy today’s race as well as the last 4 seasons? Would you say Verstappen is currently the best driver in F1 or would you say it’s mainly down to the car and therefore, you can’t really judge a driver when they’re driving such a dominant car?
It interesting how many people are suddenly suggesting that a driver winning easily is boring and how it’s entirely down to the car…. Others are doing the opposite and are enjoying fairly uneventful races like today where the leader turns everything down and cruises to the flag when they’ve previously hated them!
baasbas
7th November 2021, 21:51
Bye
Peter
7th November 2021, 22:01
So you weren’t watching any races in the past few years? At least enjoy a close championship title battle; it’s been a few years since we had this. Sure RB was faster on this track as expected however this championship isn’t over just yet. First few years we have to read all comments about Crashtappen and now this turns into a boring season? Come on, both Lewis and Max are outstanding drivers with both pushing their cars to the limit. Next week might be another RB track however after that lets see. 19 points ahead isn’t going to do it with 4 races to go.
petebaldwin (@)
7th November 2021, 23:14
@jms90h5 – It’s a fair question… Of course, you’re flagging up the fact that Max fans are suddenly enjoying races when they found the previous seasons boring. Am I right in assuming therefore that you found the previous seasons with Hamilton winning boring. The last few Championships was about as competitive as the race today so you found his title wins boring also yes? Otherwise, if you found today boring but enjoyed the last couple of years, you’ve kind of answered your own question…..
MacLeod (@macleod)
8th November 2021, 8:14
To be honest i enjoyed the end seasons of those years 2015-2020 much more when Mercedes finished it championship and Red Bull got beter at the end so other could try to win races too.
Illusive (@illusive)
7th November 2021, 21:53
And then people ask why he gets booed.
Jay Menon (@jaymenon10)
8th November 2021, 0:27
Its curious how when Lewis wins its his talent eh?
Edvaldo
7th November 2021, 22:03
The only way for Mercedes to win this one was by not losing track position from the go and using bottas to stall verstappen for as long as possible.
And maybe not even doing that.
Verstappen was 20s down the road while managing.
He could be much faster on different circunstances.
baasbas
7th November 2021, 22:13
I feel that might be something nobody mentioned yet. Verstappen didn’t have to push the ICE for many laps behind 2 Mercs running hot. It might be significant for the reliability.
jff
7th November 2021, 22:27
Good point.
MacLeod (@macleod)
8th November 2021, 8:16
But a smal time when he was preventing Bottas to get Fastest lap his engineer ask him to let him go because of the heat. It worked but effective he damaged his engine again.
baasbas
8th November 2021, 9:00
Well, we can’t assess if he had damage from that. They’ll monitor everything and warn before it is too late I suppose. But that radio message confirms it actually would be a problem if he had to run the entire race behind 2 Mercs. I’m sure the ICE in Perez’ car took more of a beating but that was worth it for RBR
Broom (@)
7th November 2021, 22:23
Welcome to the last 7 years of F1, Lewis. So sad for you.
Omar R (@)
7th November 2021, 23:26
Max’s fan here. The race today was boring. O thought there was going to be a slow-burn battle between Perez and Hamilton, such as the end of CoTA, but it never happened.
While I know it might be frustrating for Mercedes / Hamilton fans to see they aren’t racking wins by a huge margin anymore, they (both the fans and the Mercedes team members) are the least indicated ones to complain how boring this “Red Bull domination” is. Except for the first halves of 2017 and 2018, when it looked like Ferrari / Vettel could challenge them, we have had the most predictable seasons ever since 2014. At least this season Mercedes and Hamilton can still fight until the final race, maybe.
Esploratore (@esploratore1)
8th November 2021, 2:54
Yes, the closest with ferrari I think vettel lost the title usually in mexico with 2 more races to go after that, it seems mathematically possible for the championship to still be open by then, making it a new record of competitiveness in the hybrid era between different teams.
iCarbs (@icarby)
9th November 2021, 20:38
@omarr-pepper – race at times was boring.
But to be fair it does go that way sometimes.
For me the title is done, Rbr and Max will be the car to beat in Brazil. Just watching Max in the last few races the Rbr team knew they have a better car (for a change) and it was up to Mercs to try and engineer there way out of this problem, whether it be via strategy or expecting miracles from Hamilton.
Don’t expect any F1 driver to like losing and to always push for wins.
Well done to Rbr, Max and the strategists they have performed better this year.
Niefer (@niefer)
7th November 2021, 23:48
Far superior cars out of front row and without 1-2 on pure pace. Seems legit.