Hamilton used sprint race as opportunity to study how Verstappen’s car performs

Lewis Hamilton said running second in the sprint race at the Circuit of the Americas put him in a “good position” to observe how Max Verstappen’s Red Bull performs.

The Mercedes driver finished second in today’s race but fell almost 10 seconds behind the world champion over the 19 laps. “Once I was out of his DRS then he just started ekeing away and cruising,” said Hamilton.

Although all teams can analyse the performance of their rivals’ cars using the Global Positioning System data, Hamilton said the opportunity to observe Verstappen’s car at close quarters was useful.

“Not that I haven’t seen it already this year, we have seen it obviously, but it was a good position to be able to watch what the Red Bull car, what Max’s car was doing, how it is behaving.

“So I got to watch for a while and see where they are particularly strong, which we can obviously see that on GPS or something like that. But still, at least to know if there’s anywhere we’re stronger and where we’re weaker so I can download that to my team.”

Watching Verstappen’s car told Hamilton that Mercedes “have a lot of work to do” to cut into Red Bull’s lead. “Everyone behind these guys have a lot of work to do.

“It’s no small feat for us to truly catch them for next year. They will be progressing at a steep rate as they’ve got an amazing development team, to make it even steeper for us to be able to close that gap. But I’m going to put 100% faith in my team that we can do it.”

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Hamilton started the race third, moved past Charles Leclerc for second at the start and remained there until the end. “It was a fun race,” he said.

“Good start down to turn one and the battle with Charles and then I was trying early on to get closer to Max, but their pace is just undeniable at the moment.”

Mercedes brought an update for their car’s floor this weekend which Hamilton said he was able to feel the benefit of. “I’m happy we’re a little bit closer [but] we’ve still got a long way to be able to beat the pace that he was doing throughout the race. But nonetheless, I’m really happy to be back on the podium.”

Although Hamilton will start Sunday’s grand prix ahead of Verstappen, he expects the Red Bull driver will be quickly in the fight for the lead.

“I think he [Verstappen] will be breathing down our necks before too long with the pace that he had today. But, I think that’ll open up for a good fight with Charles and Lando [Norris], we’re all quite similar in pace.

“So hopefully get to have a good battle tomorrow, and if we can all keep Max behind that’d be awesome. But if not, no worries.”

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