Is damage limitation the best-case scenario for Mercedes in Mexico?

Lewis Hamilton heads into the final five races 12 points behind Max Verstappen after suffering a narrow defeat in the United States Grand Prix, while Mercedes is 23 points clear of Red Bull in the constructors’ championship. 

Although Mercedes has won three of the five races to have taken place in Mexico City since it returned to the calendar in 2015, Red Bull holds a strong record at the Autodromo Hermanos Rodriguez circuit and has been tipped to have the edge this weekend. 

Verstappen won the event in 2017 and 2018 when Red Bull was powered by Renault engines, and the Dutchman would have started on pole position in 2019 following the team’s switch to Honda power had it not been for a grid penalty. 

Hamilton admitted after the race in Austin that Mercedes will have to “try to minimise how strong they can be compared to us and see if we can do a better job”. 

The seven-time world champion challenged Verstappen for victory late on at COTA last time out but ultimately fell just short at the flag. 

And Mercedes trackside engineering director Andrew Shovlin conceded fighting Red Bull as hard as it did in the United States will “probably the best-case scenario we’re going to envisage” for the Mexican GP. 

“There’s a lot to do,” Shovlin said. “It’s such a different circuit and it’s such a different environment for the power unit to operate in but there haven’t been many circuits where we have been far off the pace.

“We’ve struggled in Monaco. We were struggling in Baku. We struggled a bit in that second Austria, but there are more of them where we can challenge them and we can challenge them for pole.

“We know where we’ve struggled in the past. We know what we need to be working on and that’s what we’ll get stuck into.”

Mercedes’ previous power advantage has been equalised in the past in Mexico due to the circuit being a higher-altitude venue, sitting over 2000m above sea level with the air 25% less dense than normal. 

The reigning world champion outfit is also battling engine reliability woes, but Valtteri Bottas believes Mercedes should be stronger in Mexico than in recent years after finding ways to “optimise” its power unit.

"For Mexico, we know it's usually been a bit of a weakness for us and it feels like quite a big chunk has been in the recent years from the power unit, because of the high altitude," Bottas explained. 

"But I think we've been able to optimise a lot since, so I would expect us to be in a better place than in the recent years.

"Still, on paper, we think they're [Mexico and Brazil] really strong places for Red Bull. We just really tried to do all the learnings we can from previous years and prepare in the best way.

"They're not going to be easy weekends, but it's never easy in this sport."

Meanwhile, Mercedes team principal Toto Wolff stressed that this year’s US GP result - at a track that was considered to be a Mercedes stronghold - proves that past form has little relevance in this year’s title battle. 

“Red Bull have gone well there in the past and it hasn't been our strongest circuit,” Wolff said. 

“But this year has shown that anything is possible and circuits where you were previously weak, you are suddenly strong, and vice versa. 

“So, it adds a layer of unknown in the build-up, which only increases the excitement.

“We'll keep taking things race by race and preparing the best we can, and we'll land in Mexico ready to hit the ground running on Friday, get a good understanding of the car's performance and build from there.”