Hamilton admits Red Bull “too quick” after Mexico F1 practice

Seven-time Formula 1 champion Lewis Hamilton has admitted that Red Bull is simply “too quick” after title rival Max Verstappen topped second practice for the Mexico City Grand Prix.

Connor McDonagh

05 Nov 2021

Lewis Hamilton (GBR) Mercedes AMG F1 W12.
© xpbimages.com

Hamilton ended the day over 0.5s behind Verstappen in FP2 at the Autodromo Hermanos Rodriguez.

Going into the weekend, many tipped Red Bull to have the advantage over Mercedes due to its impressive track record in Mexico and the high altitude playing into the strengths of the Honda power unit.

While Mercedes led the way in the morning session, Verstappen had a clear pace advantage as he looks to extend his 12-point lead in the F1 drivers’ championship.

Reflecting on Friday F1 practice in Mexico City, Hamilton was generally happy with the handling of his W12.

“The car is generally feeling OK, we’ve not really had any major issues,” Hamilton said. “I think we’re giving it absolutely everything we’ve got and it’s just that they’re quicker than us at the moment. We’ve got no real concerns.

“Just chipping away at our setup and trying to improve it but we’re lacking downforce which is probably why we had that half a second difference between us.”

Hamilton remains confident that Mercedes will be able to take the fight to Red Bull this weekend but conceded that his rivals are currently “too quick”.

“It’s looking good for us to be able to try and battle these guys but they’re definitely too quick for us,” Hamilton added.

Mercedes teammate Valtteri Bottas was four-tenths shy of Verstappen’s benchmark in second practice.

Bottas feels that Mercedes can reduce the deficit to Verstappen if it can “fine-tune” the car setup.

“Yes, I mean, starting the day, it was quite tricky with the low grip, it was quite a dusty track and that’s why it was difficult to get a proper read of how the car really is, but It thought it was not far off from what it should be and we could fine-tune it for FP2 and it didn’t feel too bad,” Bottas explained.

“But there’s still definitely lap time we need to find because Red Bull seems to be quick. They definitively seemed quicker today, at least on the single lap they have really strong pace on the soft tyre, so we need to find a bit of lap time if we want to fight for the pole.”