Lewis Hamilton hopes his Mercedes intra-team battle in the Formula 1 Mexico City Grand Prix with George Russell will help the team with its upgrade conundrum.
Mercedes brought a revised floor to the United States Grand Prix in Austin, but both drivers wrote it off across the course of the weekend.
Russell’s qualifying incident and Hamilton’s early DNF in Texas meant only the latter had the upgraded Mercedes W15 in Mexico City.
The pair were nose-to-tail for the majority of Sunday’s race with Hamilton winning out, and the seven-time champion is looking forward to uncovering the data.
“We got a lot of information,” Hamilton told select media including Motorsport Week post-race.
“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 [the team has] lots of data, so we’ll figure out who starts what next race.”
The past two weekends have been difficult for Mercedes to gauge where the upgrades are.
Both Russell and Hamilton had a chance to fight for pole in Sprint Qualifying in Austin before their weekends unravelled.
In Mexico, it was clear that Ferrari and McLaren had the edge over the Brackley-based outfit.
George Russell and Lewis Hamilton revel in Mercedes battle
Both Hamilton and Russell enjoyed their contest with one another at the Autódromo Hermanos Rodríguez on Sunday.
The pair qualified on the third row, Russell leading Hamilton but the veteran driver poached fight at lights out.
Russell shortly reclaimed the position but in the second phase of the race, Hamilton was able to hunt down and overtake his team-mate, who was hampered by a damaged front wing flap after his pit-stop.
“I had fun today,” Hamilton said.
“I had a good start, but 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.
“But the laps to the grid, it felt like it was the right thing, and it was clearly not.
“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.”
Russell added “it was nice to have the battle and I mean it’s always good when you fight with Lewis because it’s hard and fair.”
Mercedes was comfortable allowing its drivers to race, as it has been throughout the season and Hamilton revealed its because “I don’t think either of us are silly.
“George is really smart, and so is fair, and he’s just really good at where he places his car, and I think for me too.
“So when they come on the radio and say, keep it clean, it’s like, of course.”
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