Mercedes has found answers to Mexico GP tyre struggles

Mercedes Formula 1 boss Toto Wolff says his team has made progress with understanding the reasons behind the “big issues” it faced with tyre degradation during the Mexican Grand Prix.

Lewis Hamilton wrapped up his fifth world championship despite a lowly fourth-place finish, while teammate Valtteri Bottas ended up being lapped by race-winner Max Verstappen in fifth as Mercedes struggled for performance after encountering excessive tyre wear problems compared to its rivals in Mexico City.

It followed similar issues during the United States Grand Prix at Austin and prompted suggestions Mercedes had suffered as a result of electing not to run its controversial wheel rim design in both races - something the team later denied.

“Mexico was a bittersweet weekend,” Wolff explained.

“On the one hand, we're extremely happy for Lewis. He is the best driver of his generation and his fifth Formula 1 world championship puts him among the absolute greatest this sport has ever seen.

“On the other hand, we cannot be satisfied with our race performance in Mexico. Qualifying looked promising but just a few laps into the race, we knew that we'd run into big issues with the tyres.

“We started to analyse those problems immediately after the race and have made progress with understanding the challenges we faced and why. It's important to apply all our learnings to make sure we come back strong in Brazil.”

Mercedes heads into this weekend’s Brazilian Grand Prix with a chance of sealing its fifth consecutive constructors’ championship and leads Ferrari by 55 points with 86 up for grabs in the remaining two races.

Wolff said he is keen for the reigning world champions to hit back strongly after losing ground to Ferrari recently. 

“Our target for this season was to win both championships, not one title or the other, so our mindset is one of unfinished business as we head to Sao Paulo,” he added.

“We have a big battle on our hands for the constructors' title and we have lost ground to Ferrari in each of the past race weekends - even though we had the base performance to do better.

“This is the moment to keep our feet on the ground, focus clearly on the objective and trust in our processes and people to deliver.”