Hamilton: F1 title bid 'in trouble if Red Bull are this quick everywhere’

Red Bull held a clear upper hand over Mercedes in Mexico City as Max Verstappen stormed to a dominant ninth victory of the season to extend his advantage over Hamilton at the top of the F1 world championship to 19 points.

Although there are still 107 points left to play for across the final four races of the 2021 season, Hamilton concedes he will helpless to overturn the deficit if Red Bull maintains its strong form this weekend in Brazil. 

"There’s still four races [but] obviously 19 points is a lot of points and I think he’s had a lot of wins this year," Hamilton said on Sunday in Mexico. 

"I think today with their superior speed, if they were to carry that into the next ones then we will be in trouble.

"I don’t know if they’ll be using that huge wing that they had on today, naturally we’ll find out when we get there, but I hope we’re closer.”

Hamilton acknowledged he must start turning the tide in his favour quickly if he is to be successful in his quest to win a record-breaking eighth world title this year. 

"I naturally feel I need to be winning every race, because we need those extra points, not to lose those points, to try and regain," Hamilton said. 

"That was the goal going into the last race and the race before that and before that, and here this weekend.

"But they’re just too quick, so giving it absolutely everything we’ve got but unfortunately it’s not enough at the moment to compete with them.”

Mercedes’ head of trackside engineering Andrew Shovlin conceded after last Sunday’s race at the Autodromo Hermanos Rodriguez that the team has its “work cut out” to win both world championships. 

“We’ve definitely got out work cut out,” he said. "On balance they are a little bit ahead of us but it’ll get affected by the weather, the track temperatures - those will play a part. But the bigger thing will be the circuit characteristics. 

“It seems when we’re on an understeery track we tend to go a little bit better, and then at the last two races, very much about rear tyre overheating, and the last fortnight, it’s quite clear they have the advantage when we’re in that situation.” 

Despite Sao Paulo’s Interlagos circuit being another high altitude venue, Shovlin thinks there is reason to believe Mercedes will be more competitive. 

“There’s reasons we would expect it to be closer,” he explained. “The thing is what we like to spend our time doing is worrying about things that might go wrong and might catch us out. 

“So as I said it may well be, but it’s so unpredictable at the moment. You look at qualifying, and single lap can be more variable than the race pace. 

“But we don’t need to go back far and we clearly had the most dominant car through the weekend in Turkey and I think so in Sochi as well, and within the remaining four circuits there will be circuits that suit us. 

“So we’re going to keep trying and do everything we can to try and win the championships.”