"There's not one weak link in our team," says Hamilton who triumphed in Mexico with reshuffled engineering line-up and despite rivals being favourites; Reigning champion can now clinch sixth title in Austin on Sunday, live on Sky Sports F1
Wednesday 30 October 2019 06:02, UK
Lewis Hamilton believes Mercedes have fewer "weak links" in their operation compared to their F1 rivals.
With Mercedes already assured of a record sixth successive championship double in 2019, Hamilton moved to the brink of a sixth Drivers' Championship, ahead of team-mate Valtteri Bottas, by winning from third on the grid in Mexico last Sunday.
The victory - Hamilton's 10th of the season, seven more than any other driver - represented a triumph of strategy for team and driver, with Ferrari and Red Bull having appeared faster than Mercedes all weekend. Hamilton was also without long-time race engineer Peter Bonnington for the first of two races in Mexico City.
And speaking on an appearance on Sky Sports F1's Mexican GP Notebook, Hamilton told Ted Kravitz: "Bono is here in spirit and Marcus [Dudley] has done a fantastic job with Dom [Riefstahl].
"Fantastic job and that just shows how much strength in depth we have through all our people that we work with in the team.
"There's not one weak link in our team and that's why we are winning world titles. We are fighting against other good teams, but they have weak links and they make a lot more mistakes than we do."
Mercedes had played down their chances of victory all weekend at the Autodromo Hermanos Rodriguez, the venue of a bruising 80-second race defeat in 2018 where the characteristics of their car are not best suited.
Yet despite being outpaced by both Ferrari and Red Bull in qualifying, F1's world champion team and driver were able to impressively turn the tables.
"There is so much work that goes on in the background and this weekend we knew that we were up against a serious challenge," said Hamilton, who had not finished on the podium in Mexico the previous two seasons despite clinching the world title on both occasions.
"We knew it was going to be a tough weekend for us. You saw in qualifying, we didn't have the true pace. The race pace was not as great also, the tyres fell off on Friday, but we just kept our cool and keep working at it."
Hamilton can now clinch his sixth title on Sunday with a finish or eighth or better at the US GP, and added: "I really feel proud as a driver because my job is to go out there and deliver. I wanted to win this weekend and I didn't know whether it was possible or not.
"But I just kept my head down, never gave up, kept pushing and it feels like the first time, just because it's a different journey."
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