Lewis Hamilton blames front wing misjudgement for “really bad” opening stint

Lewis Hamilton cited “massive understeer” as the reason for his “really bad” first stint at the Mexico City Grand Prix.

After making a good start, getting ahead of Mercedes teammate George Russell, Hamilton struggled for pace at the Autodromo Hermanos Rodriguez.

Hamilton was overtaken by Russell on-track before dropping back.

It wasn’t until the second half of the race where Hamilton came alive as he reeled in Russell, who was nursing some front wing damage.

While teams aren’t allowed to change their cars under parc ferme conditions, small tweaks to the front wing can be made (this can be done during pit stops as well).

Hamilton revealed that he “took too much front wing out of the car” resulting in “massive understeer”.

Reflecting on the race in Mexico, Hamilton said: “Yeah, it was fun. I had fun today.

“I had a good start, I had a really bad first stint, took too much front wing out of the car, I had massive, massive understeer.

“I was like, damn. Because you have to basically guesstimate where you're going to be with the front wing, and I had a lot less than George [Russell].

“But the laps to the grid, it felt like it was the right thing, and it was clearly not.

“And after my stop, I was able to rectify it, and then after that I had a much better pace, and I was able to push and keep going, and we stopped a little bit early as well, compared to what I had planned and stuff. We got good points.”

Hamilton and Russell battled hard for fourth, with the seven-time world champion eventually getting through.

Another interesting point was that Hamilton was running the new Mercedes upgrades, while after his crash in practice, Russell reverted to some older parts.

Hamilton is now confident Mercedes will truly know which package is the one to go for in Brazil.

“No, he didn't but I had 10 laps, I knew it was going to happen at some point. I think he had a problem with his front wing,” he said of the battle with Russell.

“But we got a lot of information. I could see on his car where he was better than me, and I'm sure hopefully he'll be able to see where he's better than me. Package-wise, hopefully they have lots of data, so we'll figure out who starts at what next race.”