Louis Hamilton tried to chase the leader Max Verstappen for a while in the Mexican GP race, but abandoned this plan when he realized that he could not go significantly faster than the “Red Bull” pilot.
Hamilton started only from sixth position, but managed to finish second. Already at the start, the representative of “Mercedes” moved up by one place because Sergio Perez crashed. On the 11th lap, the British pilot overtook Daniel Ricciardo, but later caught up with Carlos Sainz, who was defeated at the expense of the pit strategy. After the restart, ordered after Kevin Magnussen’s crash, Hamilton also overtook Charles LeClair on the softer tyres.
“Great day,” says Hamilton. “I didn’t expect to fight these guys. The weekend started difficult, but then at the beginning of the race I tried to avoid problems, then I worked on the tires and tried to progress as much as possible. When I realized that I had enough speed to beat Carlos, I knew that it would work well if I entered the pits faster than him. So it’s a good strategy from the team.”
Hamilton admits that the stoppage worked for him: “The red flag probably worked in our favor because we were able to run the rest of the race on fresher tyres. However, I still didn’t know if I would be able to go all the way with medium compound tires. I looked to see if I could get closer to Max, but he was far away and I could only show equal lap times.”
This was Hamilton’s sixth podium of the season and he is third overall, now only 20 points behind Perez.
F1 standings:
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2023-10-30 18:02:06
#Hamilton #admits #catch #Verstappen #Mexican #F1LV #Blog
