MEXICO CITY — Lewis Hamilton and Mercedes are wary of a repeat of last year’s chaos at the opening few corners of the Mexican Grand Prix.
Hamilton qualified third on Saturday and needs to only finish seventh or higher to wrap up a fifth world championship title. Last year he and Sebastian Vettel clashed at the opening chicane after the Ferrari driver had made contact with eventual winner Max Verstappen.
Hamilton and Vettel line up side-by-side on the grid finishing behind the dominant Red Bull pair of Daniel Ricciardo and Verstappen.
Immediately after qualifying, Hamilton was asked if he would take a cautious approach to Turn 1, and replied: “Well you saw what happened last year with the red car behind, so I don’t know.
“It really depends how we get away but third place is a nice place to start because you get a good tow from the guys ahead so naturally I’m going to be fighting to at least try and gain a position but of course I’m aware of the Bulls ahead.”
However, Hamilton went on to say it would be foolish to change the approach to the start, as that’s usually what leads to problems.
“Not really. Everyone’s going to be barrelling into Turn One to gain, so it’s a very, very fine line. If you go easy, you can get hit. If you go too aggressive, you can hit or still get hit.
“You’ve got to race it like normal and go in for the win. That’s what I’m going to be doing. I mean, that’s what we’re here to do, is to race.”
Mercedes boss Toto Wolff expects the long 890-metre run down to Turn 1 could create another messy situation.
“Well the grid has the potential for carnage on the straight and through the first corners, because you have the two Red Bulls who have the least straight line speed on the front row, and then it’s us and then the Ferraris are obviously almost 10 kph up on everyone else. I try to visualise how that could like down the straight [opens arms out wide] and through the first corner, I just hope we come out of it with two cars intact.”
Hamilton recovered from last year’s chaotic start to finish by clawing back to a ninth-place finish at the Autodromo Hermanos Rodriguez, which was all he needed to clinch the title on that occasion.