Hamilton: ‘A blessing’ if Mercedes win before end of F1 2022
Hamilton agonisingly missed out on taking his first victory of the season last time out at the United States Grand Prix, when he was overtaken by Max Verstappen in the closing stages of the Austin race after the Red Bull driver fought back from a slow pitstop.
Mercedes have just three races remaining to end its victory drought, while Hamilton is at risk of losing his win-every-season F1 record.
Speaking ahead of the Mexico City race on Thursday, the seven-time world champion admitted the emotions would be “unmeasurable” if the team were able to break their duck this year.
“This whole circus - every team, and everybody in every team, has been working flat out this year,” Hamilton told Sky Sports.
“In terms of who deserves more than another, I can comment only on my team, what I’ve seen, how hard and how deep everyone has been focused and incredibly determined.
“Of course they deserve success. But this year we didn’t do the job that the others have done.
“It would be beautiful, such a blessing, if we did get a win. I think the emotions that would come out would be unmeasurable.
“But if it doesn’t come, that’s okay. We just take that energy that we feel - there is a huge amount of hope.
“We know where the car isn’t great and we know where to put it to make it better. So that’s what we are focused towards.”
Mercedes are hopeful Mexico’s unique high altitude conditions will mask their straightline speed deficiency and enable them to challenge Red Bull once more.
But Hamilton still expects Red Bull to be the team to beat at a track that has typically favoured the Milton Keynes-based outfit, with Verstappen winning the race in 2017, 2018 and 2021.
“Coming into this weekend, it’s high-altitude which forces everyone to be on maximum downforce, even the Red Bulls,” he said.
“I don’t know if they are always the strongest with their max wing - we will see. They were very strong here last year so I anticipate they will be very strong this weekend.
“I just hope we are in the mix again because it was really fun last week.”
Hamilton added: “I anticipate they’ll have the most powerful one [engine] this weekend because they have more deployment than everybody.
“They almost seem to have 100 percent deployment through the lap, whereas most other people are 70-80 percent.”
