Hamilton Gave Up After Seeing Verstappen's Lap Times During Mexico City Grand Prix
F1Monday, 30 October 2023 at 17:30
Mercedes F1 driver Lewis Hamilton reflected on his race in second position during the Mexico City Grand Prix at Autodromo Hermanos Rodriguez.
After declaring his car a "nightmare to drive" during the qualifying session on Saturday, Lewis Hamilton seemed to be much more satisfied with the set-up of his Mercedes on Sunday.
Starting from sixth place on the grid, Lewis Hamilton instantly gained one position on the first lap after the retirement of Sergio Perez, who was launched into the air after contact with Charles Leclerc.
Throughout the race, the Mercedes driver made his way through the field into the second position, where he found himself in kind of a no man's land with a comfortable 5-8 seconds lead from Leclerc and 10 seconds gap to leading Max Verstappen.
While Ferrari strategists predicted in radio to Leclerc that Hamilton would lose pace on his medium tires by the end, the seven-time World Champion seemed to have it under control as he told the media after the race:
"Yeah, for sure I could have pushed a little bit harder. But I did at one time try to see, okay, I think I’ve saved enough, let me see if I can try and close this gap to Max."
Max Verstappen, in the race lead, had hard compound tires on his car and was managing pace just to bring the win home. Hamilton revealed he gave up after he saw the lap times of the Flying Dutchman.
"I think it was like 10 laps to go, and I did a 22.0 and Max did a 21.9. I was like, ‘Ah, I’ll leave it’. He was just cruising at 21.9. So yeah, so I thought I’d leave it there."
Hamilton mentioned he did not want to push his tires too much just to be safe. By saving his tires, Hamilton was then able to go for the fastest lap which he achieved in the final lap of the race.
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