How Hamilton went from "no hope" to victory

Before the Mexican Grand Prix weekend, Lewis Hamilton said Mercedes had "no hope" against Ferrari on the long main straight.

But it was Sebastian Vettel that had no chance in the race simply because Hamilton would not let him get close enough during a gripping final third of the GP. Despite concerns about the tyre life and floor damage sustained on the opening lap, Hamilton was in complete control.

This was a weekend of fine margins, a race in which any one of the drivers from the big three teams might legitimately claim to have been a serious victory threat.

Hamilton and Mercedes were helped by the others not quite nailing it, with Ferrari splitting Charles Leclerc and Sebastian Vettel onto two-stop and one-stop strategies respectively but unable to maintain their track-position advantage.

Red Bull driver Max Verstappen was eliminated from contention by a three-place penalty for ignoring a yellow flag that cost him pole position and then a puncture after contact with Valtteri Bottas.

But it was Hamilton who prevailed despite a fraught first lap that began with being edged onto the grass on the long run to the first corner by Vettel.

He had to lift as a result - later describing it over the radio as "super dangerous". But Vettel hadn't seen him initially, moving back to the right once he realised where the Mercedes was.

"I got a really good start so I was pulling up to Charles and Seb is coming across, coming across and I'm thinking 'I'm on the white line, I don't have anywhere further to go'," said Hamilton.

"And he just keeps coming. So I had to avoid crashing with him, going onto the grass. Then I was surrounded by a bunch of cars, I braked into Turn 1 and all of a sudden Max is alongside me."

Hamilton hung on around the outside of the Turn 1 right-hander but the rear snapped at the exit, pitching him sideways. The snap was so savage that Hamilton thought he'd been rear-ended.

He gathered it up with an armful of opposite lock, narrowly avoiding first Verstappen then Vettel, but inevitably went wide into the Turn 2 left-hander. Verstappen took to the grass to avoid Hamilton, who himself had to go off-road.

This allowed Alex Albon to move up to third and Carlos Sainz Jr to pass him through Turns 4/5 after getting a run at the exit of Turn 3. Bottas was down in seventh after losing a place off the line.

The Ferrari drivers, who had held position with Leclerc leading from Vettel despite approaching the first corner side-by-side, must have been delighted to see so much clear air behind them.

They even had time for a scrape of their own as Vettel dinked Leclerc's right-rear with his front wing coming through Turn 5 after the leader had run deep at the previous corner.

It didn't take Hamilton long to clear Sainz for fourth, passing him on the approach to Turn 1 on lap four, but he wasn't able to make any significant inroads on Albon, who was two seconds up the road.

Verstappen's race was about to go from bad to worse. He dropped to ninth behind Daniil Kvyat after his off, but quickly repassed the Toro Rosso driver out of Turn 5 before setting to work on Bottas.

He pulled off a brilliant lunge up the inside of Bottas, who was looking for a way past sixth-placed Lando Norris. It surprised the Finn, who noticed the Red Bull late and wound off the lock. But as he turned back in he hit Verstappen's right-rear wheel.

"We knew we needed to do something different and we saw Ricciardo going long on the hard tyres, I think he had 30-odd laps and was posting green lap times" Toto Wolff on Hamilton's strategy

This gave Verstappen a puncture, although it didn't manifest itself quickly enough to allow him to dive into the pits. Having asked the team to check the tyre, he was informed about the puncture shortly before it fell apart at Turn 2.

The resulting slow crawl to the pits dropped him to 35 seconds off the back of the field.

From there, all he could do was work his way back through the midfielders and back up to sixth with a marathon stint on hards.

With one victory contender out of the way, things settled down as everyone waited for the first to blink and dive into the pits. All of the big three team drivers had used medium Pirellis to set their Q2 times, so the question was to pit early and go for a two stop or strike out for a one stopper?

Albon was the first to make a move, and it proved to be a bad one for his race. He peeled into the pits at the end of lap 14, committing to a two-stop strategy by taking a second set of mediums in the hope of undercutting Vettel. At that point, he held third, 4.5s off the lead and just 2.1s behind Vettel. But despite a brisk turnaround by Red Bull, Sainz, who led the midfield from the start for McLaren and was struggling on ailing softs, blasted past on the run to Turn 1 as Albon rejoined.

The Red Bull driver searched for a way past, making light front-left to rear-right contact on the run between the Turn 5 and 6 right-handers, instantly demanding "why is he defending so hard?" over the radio. He was only saved when Sainz pitted at the end of the lap to take on hard rubber that he couldn't get working and ruined his race.

Albon's stop triggered Ferrari into life, and it called in leader Leclerc on the next lap. He too was locked onto a two-stopper by taking mediums, emerging with an advantage that had almost doubled to 8.5s over the frustrated Albon.

As Vettel stayed out, this effectively divided the five remaining top three drivers into two groups - Albon and Leclerc two-stopping, with leader Vettel two seconds ahead of Hamilton and Bottas a further seven seconds back all shooting for one-stoppers.

Hamilton spent much of his phase of the race 1.5-2s behind Vettel and Mercedes opted to attempt an undercut by bringing him in at the end of lap 23. There was an element of risk given how long he'd need to go on hards, but the consistent pace of those who had started on the tyre gave the team cause for optimism that it was possible - despite Hamilton's inevitable doubts.

Hamilton's pace on the outlap, which took around 1.5s out of Vettel after emerging 22.5s down, meant the Ferrari would have lost position had he pitted.

Ferrari told Vettel to "mode box", which doesn't necessarily indicate a stop, then decided to keep him out given it knew he would lose track position.

"He was in 'mode push' because it was the best way to give us the opportunity to decide late on in the lap what was the best to do," said Ferrari team principal Mattia Binotto.

"If he'd come in he would have been behind because already in the first sector Hamilton was fast enough to stay ahead. So being behind, the best way was to stay out. We stayed out to have some advantage in the last part of the race with fresher tyres."

Hamilton inevitably had a pace advantage, gaining just over half a second per lap on Vettel in the next 12 laps. Ferrari then called Vettel in at the end of lap 37 and he emerged from the pits in fourth place, which was effectively second behind Hamilton given leader Leclerc and third-placed Albon both needed to stop again.

By the end of lap 38, he was 7.364s behind and over the next eight laps was, on average 0.552s quicker than Hamilton as he closed to within three seconds at the end of lap 46.

But he wasn't the fastest man on track. That honour fell to Bottas who was 0.179s per lap faster and had closed from 3.5s behind when Vettel emerged from the pits having stopped a lap earlier to within two.

To add to Vettel's concern, a disproportionate percentage of his gain came on his first flying lap on hards, taking 1.3s out of Hamilton, with the gap more like four tenths thereafter.

Vettel did at least benefit from Albon getting out of the way by making his second stop to switch to hards at the end of lap 44, dropping to fifth. Leclerc had made his second stop to take hards a lap earlier, promoting Hamilton, Vettel and Bottas to the top three positions covered by just 4.8s.

Over the next five laps, Hamilton and Vettel near as makes no difference lapped at the same pace while Bottas inched up on both. The trio were now covered by just 3.980s with Vettel looking more likely to be attacked by Bottas than to challenge Hamilton.

Inevitably, Mercedes was still concerned about whether Hamilton's hards would last to the end. But this fear abated as the race went on and those who had run further on that compound, such as Verstappen and Daniel Ricciardo, still weren't suffering from massive wear or significant degradation.

It didn't seem like the Ferrari quite had the pace, but the gap ebbed and flowed with a few tenths gained here, a few tenths lost there. Still the upshot was that nothing changed. Even when Vettel was given the all-clear to push to the end having had to fuel save, the picture remained the same with Hamilton covering everything Vettel could throw at him.

Until the final two laps, save for a brief spell at the end of lap 63 and the start of lap 64, Vettel was never within two seconds of Hamilton.

He crossed the line 1.834s down having pulled a similar trick on Bottas, who took the chequered flag a further 1.799s behind.

Vettel believed he suffered more than the Mercedes drivers through the lapped traffic, but accepted that any pace advantage the Ferrari did have was nowhere near enough to challenge.

That Hamilton prevailed is a reminder of exactly why he will probably be a six-time world champion in just a few days' time

"We went through quite a lot of traffic so through that window I was not as fortunate as Lewis and Valtteri, who benefited from it a couple of times," said Vettel.

"I had guys in front into the last sector and they didn't move until very late and I lost momentum. So it was difficult to keep closing on Lewis.

"Once we cleared the traffic, I think it was better. I was probably a tenth or two faster. Given I was on 15 laps fresher tyre it was probably also fair, but I think he had enough pace to respond. Even if you're a tenth or two faster you're not going to pass. You need a bigger delta to put the guy in front under pressure."

Despite the tyre concerns, Hamilton and Mercedes had this once completely under control. By making the second stop relatively early and taking the risk on the hards, Hamilton gained track position over Vettel and never looked back.

"We were not convinced," said Mercedes team boss Toto Wolff of whether the tyres would last. "There were two main factors. One we knew that we had to take a risk when you are starting third and sixth. It is easier to come up with some bold strategies providing you come up with a good car, which we had, and fantastic drivers.

"So we knew we needed to do something different and we saw Ricciardo going long on the hard tyres, I think he had 30-odd laps and was posting green lap times, and then we had quite some discussion and in the end, what James [Vowles] and his strategy department opted for, to go long, worked out."

Ferrari was left looking enviously at the risks Mercedes took, not just in Hamilton getting the undercut on Vettel but in terms of how early Leclerc stopped - turning an early lead into what was ultimately fourth place ahead of Albon.

"We realised it only very late," said Binotto of the fact that a one-stop was easily achievable.

"When Charles stopped it was still too early to gamble on the one stop, it would have been too risky, especially being ahead as he was. Not only for tyre degradation but for wear as well. That's something you can look at and analyse in the data.

"Certainly the gamble they did was the right gamble. They took some risks to win and I think the risk went to their merit. That's the way it is, maybe we should have taken more risks. It's difficult to judge. After the result, it's easy to say yes."

While Hamilton wasn't always confident the gamble would pay off, it did so in spades as he earned his 10th victory of the season. While he didn't quite do enough to make sure of a sixth world championship, barring disaster it's a foregone conclusion he will do so at Austin this coming weekend.

Not bad for a weekend that he expected little from, especially with long-time race engineer Pete 'Bono' Bonnington missing Mexico and the US GP because of a medical procedure - meaning performance engineer Marcus Dudley stepped up to do the job. Doubly so given he was carrying damage to the vertical slots along the edge of the floor after what happened on the opening lap.

"A big part of the side of my rear floor was missing," said Hamilton. "The balance was quite a lot different. The rear end was quite weak so I was sliding around a lot in the high-speed, so I had to change my settings quite a lot and drive it a little bit differently because I couldn't attack the same way on the entry of corners because the rear stability wasn't the same."

Low expectations, no place on the front row, two encounters with the grass on the opening lap, tyre-wear concerns and car damage - not to mention the need to climb from fifth on the first lap - meant this was not a straightforward weekend for Hamilton.

That he prevailed is a reminder of exactly why he will probably be a six-time world champion in just a few days' time.