Hamilton concedes Red Bull “quicker on all tyres” in US F1 GP

Hamilton lost more ground in the title race as Max Verstappen claimed his eighth win of the season.

The Mercedes driver took the lead at the start but an aggressive two-stop strategy from Red Bull allowed Verstappen to reclaim crucial track position. 

Despite looking faster on the harder tyre, Hamilton was sure that Red Bull had the advantage on all three compounds in Austin.

“I think they were quicker all weekend, on all tyres today,” Hamilton said after the race. “Just in the heat, I think the real strength has shone through this weekend, a bit like it has in other places, like Bahrain, this year.”

Next up is Mexico and Brazil - two circuits where Red Bull has enjoyed an advantage over Mercedes in recent years due to the high altitude. 

Assessing the upcoming races, Hamilton said: “I’m not thinking about it at the moment, I’ve got to be happy with the job that I did today and live in the moment. 

“Unfortunately we weren’t quick enough to win the race today but yeah, we just look forward and take it one race at a time. We have no idea… they are two circuits that are strong for Red Bull so we just try to minimise how strong they can be compared to us and see if we can do a better job.”

Mercedes’ Andrew Shovlin remains unsure if the bumps at COTA impacted the W12’s handling more than Red Bull’s RB16B.

“It was quite tricky, it’s very difficult to say whether that was a better issue for us than the Red Bull,” Shovlin explained. “I think the Red Bull had a stronger rear end here and when you’re overheating and bouncing around like that, rear grip is your friend. 

“That seems to be an area where their car seems to be performing very well. But to be honest, we were probably braced for bigger issues in terms of the set-up and the car damage with the bumps. It seemed to cope when them reasonably well, but we’ll go look at whether there was something there that we could’ve done better in terms of adapting to the track.”