Hamilton finished ahead of Germany's Sebastien Vettel
British driver Lewis Hamilton of the Mercedes team won the Mexican Formula 1 Grand Prix on Sunday, held at the Autodromo Hermanos RodrÃguez in the Mexican capital, but failed to sum up his sixth world title.
"I don't care if the definition of the championship has been lengthened, this is a race I wanted to win," Hamilton said after his victory.
Hamilton finished ahead of Germany's Sebastien Vettel (Ferrari) and Finland's Valteri Bottas (Mercedes), who kept the fight alive for the World Drivers' Championship by being 74 points ahead of the lead.
After the 18th race of the season, Hamilton leads the standings with 363 points followed by Bottas, who has 289, and with a schedule that still has 78 points to be dealt in three GPs: the United States, Brazil and Abu Dhabi.
Hamilton achieved the 83rd victory of his career and second in Mexico, the previous one was in 2016.
Immediately after the run there were several touches; Hamilton and Dutchman Max Verstappen (Red Bull) who started from the second line left the track and ran a few meters on the grass, even overstepped by Thai Alexander Albon (Red Bull) and Spaniard Carlos Sainz (McLaren).
Laps after that incident, Hamilton decided to make his tyre change on lap 24 so he would never sit in the pits again and stay focused for the rest of the race.
In contrast, the Monegasque Charles Leclerc (Ferrari) did not know how to take advantage of the "pole position" and the advantage went because of the two stops he made in pits in laps 15 and 44.
Despite the push he showed in the last third of the race and recording the fastest lap, Leclerc paid dearly for the decision to go to the pits twice and failed to get on the podium.
"The strategy of a stop was the logic, the right one," admitted Mattia Binotto, Ferrari's boss.
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