Hamilton expects Red Bull to recover: 'They were fastest this weekend'

For Lewis Hamilton, it was a big surprise when he saw his teammate's name at the top P1 of qualifying for the Mexican Grand Prix. Prior to the weekend, everyone at Mercedes expected on a dominant display from Red Bull Racing, but the opposite happened. Still, the seven-time world champion is holding back on his expectations.

"I don’t really have an answer for it, but I’ll take it, for sure, and really grateful to be up there with Valtteri for the team to get a one-two," Hamilton explained to Formula1.com. In the free practice sessions, Mercedes seemed to be in pursuit, because even after FP3, Red Bull with Sergio Perez and Max Verstappen were the fastest.

Hamilton will defend in opening phase

Hamilton therefore expects Red Bull to show that speed throughout the race."Well, once again, we’ve been behind – all our results over these past three free practice sessions have shown that we were behind – not only in qualifying from around three-tenths on a single lap but also in race trim. So who knows? I think track position is pretty important here, so we’ll work as a team to try and battle that and keep it."

That fighting will mostly take place on the first lap. From the starting spots on the grid, it's a long run down to the first corner, and in recent years we have seen that drivers on the second row of the grid are able to take advantage of the slipstream and therefore attack the front of the field.