Hamilton: Great battles next year, I'm ready

After the disappointment of his disqualification in Austin one week ago, Hamilton bounced back with a strong drive to second in Mexico, delivering the result after a brilliant pass on Ferrari's Charles Leclerc to seal the deal in the second part of the race after a Red flag following Kevin Magnussen's crash, thus showing he still has not lost any of his touch behind the wheel of a Formula 1 car.

"We can build a great car," Hamilton told Sky Sports F1 after the race. "We haven't for the past two years but we can build a great car.

"There are a lot of engineers that... nobody wants to copy anybody, they want to find their own way. I think we are progressing but I heard Red Bull are progressing as well," he added insisting Mercedes are going their own way, not simply coping Red Bull like others.

"We have to be really, really strategic and really clinical with moves. They know that already but in order for us to be battling those guys.

"They are so quick on the straight, we were losing two and a half tenths into turn one, but I'm ready. If we can get the car that can match them, we're going to have some great battles next year," the Briton maintained.

Hamilton was not happy with his W14 after qualifying, but his pace in the race was strong, and later said in Mercedes' race report: "It's a great result considering we started from P6 and amazing day for the team.

"We pushed hard and I'm proud of the whole team for all their work. It's been a difficult couple of weeks for us so it's great to finally bounce back. The car felt much better today [Sunday], and the pace was strong. Today [Sunday] was about the balance of the car and managing the tyres and we managed to do that well.

"We dug really deep this weekend to improve the set-up and get it right and the result today shows the hard work everyone in the team has put in to achieve that.

"Now I can't wait to get to Brazil and hopefully continue with the strong pace of the car," the seven-time F1 Champion concluded.

George Russell was sixth at the chequered flag in Mexico, and despite Mercedes putting him on Medium tyres like Hamilton for the restart, he did not have the pace to gain more positions, even losing out to Lando Norris who started 17th on the grid.

Russell said: "I felt really good in the car today, the pace was there so definitely a positive from this weekend. I was right behind Carlos wanting to overtake when my brakes overheated.

"We were concerned about making it to the end, so I had to back off and that's where I lost all the temperature in the tyres and didn't manage to get them back into the right window. It was like driving on ice for the last 20 laps so I'm glad I managed to finish in P6.

"Another difficult weekend for us but the car was performing well," he went on. "We just need to have some clean weekends and show consistency, but I'm confident we'll achieve that.

"I'm looking forward to Brazil and I hope that we will show some good pace there too and hopefully we will be in a position to fight for the podium," Russell concluded.

Mercedes till lead Ferrari in the 2023 F1 Constructors' Championship by 30 points.