Lewis Hamilton going all out for win despite only needing nine points to secure title

The Englishman wants F1 to improve the frequency of on-track battles

Hamilton is looking for his 63rd career win in Mexico (Getty)

With 331 points to Sebastian Vettel’s 265 and only 75 left on the table, Lewis Hamilton effectively needs to score just nine more this weekend in Mexico to ensure that he is world champion for the fourth time, even if Vettel wins here, and again in Brazil and Abu Dhabi.

That means that a fifth-place finish, which would earn him 10 points regardless of what anyone else does, would be sufficient.

But the Mercedes driver says he will be going all-out to score his 10th triumph of the year, and is hoping for another fight with the Ferrari team leader, whom he overtook on the sixth lap of last week’s US GP in Austin on the way to his 62nd career win.

“It’s for others to decide whether I have the upper hand on Sebastian as a driver,” Hamilton said. “I know what I think, because I followed him before overtaking. I really wish we could have had more battles this year, because last week’s was so short-lived. That’s something that F1 needs to improve on.

“The Circuit of the Americas is so well designed, but F1 needs to figure out how to make that happen more often. When I was go-karting we learned all of that overtaking stuff, putting the other guy on the wrong foot and positioning yourself so you could make the pass. I did that with Max [Verstappen] when I retook the lead, and we don’t get enough of that.

“When you are fighting a four-time world champion you know you are fighting the best and you are waiting for one of you to falter, and you never want to be that one.”

Mercedes are expecting a more difficult time at the Autodromo Hermanos Rodriguez in Mexico City than they experienced en route to an ‘easy’ win in America, however, as its high altitude could confer an aerodynamic advantage on rivals Ferrari and Red Bull who have greater downforce on such tracks.

Though the overall odds favour Hamilton so strongly with his 66-point advantage, Vettel has vowed not to give up until the situation is mathematically impossible, and like Hamilton is aiming to win all three final races.

“We start again this weekend, and we will never give up as long as there is a chance,” Vettel said. “In this game you never know what can happen,”

There will be discussion this weekend with the FIA and the drivers to resolve the vexed subject of track limits, which not only cost Verstappen a well-won third place in Austin last week, but another here last year when first he then Vettel, and finally the Dutchman’s team-mate Daniel Ricciardo, each held the final podium position until the former two were penalised out of it.

That was the celebrated occasion on which Vettel made a profane outburst against FIA race director Charlie Whiting, while last week Verstappen referred to one steward, Australia’s Garry Connelly, as a “mongol” on Dutch television after he was penalised five seconds and dropped back behind Kimi Raikkonen after a dramatic last-lap pass. The decision received global condemnation as Verstappen accused the FIA of “killing the sport”, and apparently was at odds with an F1 Strategy Group directive that stewards should take a more lenient attitude to drivers using more of the race track than they should.


 Vettel accepted that his championship hopes are all but over 
 (Getty)

In Austin, Mercedes’ F1 chairman Niki Lauda called the decision the worst he had seen and said, “Last year it was all agreed. Unless it is dangerous, the stewards would not interfere. Very simple. If they drive over each other and go upside down, only then they will come in to the stewards. And now we get this decision. I think it's completely wrong.”

Verstappen subsequently said that he had not meant it personally when he attacked Connelly, who has more than once penalised him for infringements, and said on the Dutch TV programme Peptalk last Monday, "In the heat of the moment you say things, but of course I didn't mean anything bad. At that moment, it just blurts out. I didn't mean to hurt anyone.”

As the FIA stewards have been accused of inconsistency, Mercedes boss Toto Wolff believes that the governing body should take a more liberal view, as agreed by the Strategy Group.

“My opinion is we should let the guys race, but if someone is unfair and is using the track in a way he shouldn't to his advantage, then penalise him," he said. Some argue that Verstappen was doing just that, with all four wheels off the designated road. "If it is just hard racing and you are just trying to make your way through, then we shouldn't penalise too quickly."

“We have discussed it before,” exasperated Red Bull boss Christian Horner said. “We have said let the drivers race, let them get on with it, and then decisions like this get made. I just think it was a bad judgement by the stewards.”

The FIA rotate them from a regular pool, and in recent years the standard of stewarding has been much higher than it was 10 years ago. This weekend former racer Tom Kristensen, a multiple Le Mans winner, is joined by former Indycar racer Felipe Giaffone and Gerd Ennser, taking over from F1 racer Mika Salo, Connelly, Dennis Dean and Radovan Novak, who served in Austin.