F1 News: Lewis Hamilton's Mexico GP Comeback Raises Serious Questions

Lewis Hamilton set the fastest lap time toward the end of the race.

Lewis Hamilton's Mexican Grand Prix run was not only quick enough to get him a P2 finish behind Max Verstappen but, also quick enough to set the fastest lap of the race on Sunday. This has raised several questions, prompting many to ask if the Mercedes W14 carried more pace than what was being displayed.

F1 commentator and former team manager Peter Windsor believes Hamilton's car carried way more pace on Sunday since the seven-time world champion secured the fastest lap toward the end of the Grand Prix. 

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After suffering from the second disqualification of his career in Austin, Hamilton brushed away a few cobwebs by finishing second in Mexico despite his P6 start. However, Windsor believes that the W14 carried way more pace than we saw during the race and the fastest lap at the finishing stage of the GP proves the case. 

Hamilton's fastest lap earned him an extra four points as a bonus. At 1.21.334s, it was three-tenths faster than race leader Verstappen's benchmark time recorded on lap 40.

Was Hamilton Holding Back From Going Faster?

Explaining his analysis via his YouTube video, Windsor expressed his surprise at the sudden availability of pace in the final stint. He said:

“Lewis set the fastest lap [and] that will have irritated Max a bit because he always loves to set fastest lap and, at that point, he had it – and Lewis set it on the last lap.

"That brought a smile obviously to everybody’s face in the Mercedes garage – and certainly Lewis enjoyed that – but it was a weird thing.

"This is Lewis looking after the tyres and going a little bit slower than Max virtually everywhere, apart from one [lap] – and on the last lap he does a 21.3!

"It’s a cliché to say: ‘Well, where did that come from?’ – but it has to be asked because I suppose you would say in the debrief afterwards when it’s all quiet: ‘21.3, Lewis! What were you doing [for the rest of the race]?’

"Of course, he would say: ‘Well, I wouldn’t have been able to do that 21.3 unless I’d been looking after the tyres the way I had in the previous 10-12 laps’ – and that probably is the correct answer.

"But it’s an interesting one, isn’t it, how quick he was? But then again, I suppose we don’t know how quick Max would have been if he’d had to respond to that 21.3. As it was, he had no chance because it was on the last lap of the race."

Then came the big question from Windsor. How much quicker would Hamilton have driven if he knew the tires were going to last until the end? He continued:

“So it was a little bit of an unanswered question there [and] I suppose this is the way to put it: if Lewis had known that the tyres were going to last to the point where he could do a 21.3 on the last lap, how much quicker would he have driven – how much more would he have pushed the tyres – over the previous 12 laps?

"That’s an interesting question. Of course, he doesn’t know the answer [and] it’s purely hypothetical, because he never would know how long the tyres are going to last. It was always a question mark if those mediums were going to go away.

"Lewis finished second, nearly 14 seconds behind Max, but with fastest lap to his credit – and there were no issues in parc ferme!”