Following their “unbelievable” performance in Mexico, Lewis Hamilton is adamant that Red Bull has the superior car in the 2021 title fight.
For the 2021 title race, Lewis Hamilton believes Red Bull has a significant car advantage over Mercedes, describing their pace during the Mexican Grand Prix as “unbelievable.”
After Red Bull dominated practice, Mercedes locked out the front row of the grid for Sunday’s race, but the tables were reversed at the start when Max Verstappen cleared Hamilton and Valtteri Bottas into Turn 1.
Verstappen then stormed ahead, crossing the finish line more than 15 seconds ahead of Hamilton, extending his lead in the World Championship standings to 19 points.
“Half a second quicker”
Hamilton thinks that the next four races of the season will be difficult for him and Mercedes.
“With four races to go, [I] just have to keep pushing,” Hamilton told Sky Sports F1.
“I mean, if they have this performance… I don’t know where this performance has come from today, but they were half a second quicker than us per lap, which is what we saw earlier on the weekend.
“[I’ll] just keep trying to squeeze everything out of this car. They clearly have the stronger car. I think all I can do is just try to make sure that we don’t leave any stone unturned and we maximise what we have.”
Damage limitation
Hamilton noted that finishing second in Mexico City was damage limitation because he had no answer for Verstappen’s pace, but he did manage to keep Sergio Perez’s Red Bull at bay in the closing stages.
“I started second and finished second, so I can’t complain,” added Hamilton, whose last victory came four races ago in Russia.
“I got a really good start and feel like I maximised what I had. But, jeez, their pace was just unbelievable today. There was nothing I could do to battle that.”
Hamilton, when asked about Red Bull’s sudden lack of performance in qualifying, said: “We didn’t get much faster because they made a mistake. I think they just messed it up with their tyres or something.”
While Hamilton has lost more distance to Verstappen in the Drivers’ Championship, Mercedes now leads Red Bull in the Constructors’ Championship by just one point.
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