Lewis Hamilton is refusing to put the blame on Mercedes after he revealed a car problem contributed to his failure in sewing up the world championship in America.
The 33-year-old needs just five points to close out the title, meaning seventh in Mexico City on Sunday will be enough to get the job done with two rounds to spare.
After he secured a brilliant pole, it was expected that Hamilton would be crowned champion in Austin, Texas, but a strategy error by Mercedes denied him a shot at victory.
The water pump on Hamilton’s car was also replaced before the race after a leak had been identified on team-mate Valtteri Bottas’ machinery.
Congrats to Kimi, he did a great job today out there. A huge thanks to the fans for always making this such a special place to race. We keep working and will push forward to the next one in Mexico #USGP #F1 @MercedesAMGF1 pic.twitter.com/otpMJS0DhS — Lewis Hamilton (@LewisHamilton) October 21, 2018
A set-up issue, when his vehicle was hastily put back together, also came to light after the race, with the Briton saying it affected his performance.
Hamilton, who will watch NFL side Atlanta Falcons take on the New York Giants on Monday night, has asked to be kept in the loop of Mercedes’ analysis by his race engineer, Pete Bonnington, before he heads south of the border.
“You saw that the car was in a million pieces on Sunday morning, so that was not ideal for the race,” Hamilton said.
“If we didn’t have a morning like that our race outcome would have potentially been different.
We’ll just have to settle it in Mexico City then, boys… 🇲🇽👏 pic.twitter.com/CLQGv2OqX1 — Mercedes-AMG F1 (@MercedesAMGF1) October 22, 2018
“We had another problem which cost us time and the issue I was having with the car was the biggest outlier. Given I had this deficit I was having to push that much harder to recover the time I lost.
“I will get an email update from Bono and then we will sit down on Thursday in Mexico and go through it all.
“No one is to blame. We take the blame together and we give ourselves a kick up the backside and realise that we have got to keep working and keep pushing. We will come back stronger.”
Despite his troubles in a thrilling race at the Circuit of the Americas, Hamilton remains firmly in the box seat to emulate Juan Manuel Fangio with his fifth championship this coming weekend.
On to Mexico…@LewisHamilton needs only to finish in the top 7 on Sunday and a 5th world title will be his pic.twitter.com/yR271Qymtm — Formula 1 (@F1) October 22, 2018
Indeed, Hamilton has retired just once this season, and has not finished lower than fifth in the 17 races he has completed. Mexico City was also the venue of his fourth title triumph last term.
“I honestly didn’t have any care about winning the world championship in America,” he added. “There were a lot of questions about it, but I hadn’t given it a single thought.
“I was here solely to win, and my goal was to win these last four races of the season.
“There were a lot of things that went against us. For me, there are frustrations because I want to win the title for the team.
“Collectively, we have lost some performance to Ferrari, but we think we know where that performance is, and we still have three races to go.”
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