Lewis Hamilton says he couldn’t care less whether he wins the Formula 1 title at Sunday’s Mexican Grand Prix. The Mercedes driver, who qualified third with Ferrari title match Sebastian Vettel on shaft, needs just to complete fifth to win the title regardless of whether the German wins the race.
Hamilton, 32, said after touching base in Mexico that he needs to secure his fourth world title by winning the race at the Autodromo Hermanos Rodriguez in Mexico City.
“It definitely wasn’t the best of sessions,” he said. “Sebastian did a great job. The Red Bull and Ferrari were way out of our league today but even if I had finished the lap, which was a really good lap, I would have been 0.2secs.
“We just didn’t have it today. Can’t win them all. but the race is a long day so I’m hoping I can make up some ground.
“I am confident of our race pace but this is not a good track in terms of being able to follow. You need 1.3secs [advantage per lap] to overtake, so as soon as you get up behind someone you’re done. As soon as the start is done, it is going to be about bringing it home.”
Be that as it may, his activity has been made harder by his absence of pace in qualifying – precisely as the group had anticipated before the end of the week.
Hamilton was almost a large portion of a moment off Vettel, who beat Red Bull’s Max Verstappen by only 0.086 seconds, and said he couldn’t have beaten the combine regardless of whether he had done his best lap on his last run.
“It doesn’t feel great that people keep talking about it because I have three races to do the job,” said Hamilton.
“I really have no cares if we win it here or at the next race.”
He said: “I hope for a clean race, the car felt good and if we can carry that into tomorrow then why not? We need a good start and then we can do it. We start on the good side so it should be good.
“We would like to be here in a different position but we attack the race and try to win. That’s all we can do. For the rest, it is not in our hands so it is better to focus on what we can do.”
