Lewis Hamilton came home to take the second step on the podium for the second race in a row in Mexico, after starting in third.
The seven-time world champion never quite got close enough to pole sitter Max Verstappen to think about taking the win, with the Dutchman breaking the magic one second interval which enables DRS within the first lap.
Mercedes opted to go for a medium-hard strategy while Red Bull started on the softs and finished on the mediums.
Prior to the race Mercedes’ strategy looked to be a strong one, with it seemingly improbable that soft and medium tyres would be able to get you to the finish line, while only making one stop, however this did not prove to be the case.
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Tyre degradation was much lower than anticipated, and Verstappen took his medium tyres right until the end, not seeing the drop of in pace that Mercedes anticipated him having in the later stages that they may have been able to take advantage off.
George Russell, who was on the same strategy to his teammate thinks that the hard tyre was the wrong one to switch on to, never quite finding the pace that he wanted and finishing in P4.
“I had a good start but lost two positions in the first lap, and our strategy with medium – hard was not the right one.
“I couldn’t get the hard tyre working as there was just no grip.
“We might have been able to get close, being on the same strategy [to Red Bull],” he suggested.
Hamilton has made a similar point to Russell, claims that being on different tyres to the other teams ended up costing Mercedes, but overall he is happy to be on the podium again in what has been a difficult year for the Silver Arrows.
“The race pace was generally quite good, but we were offset on tyres for most of the race,” he explained.
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“Maybe we should have started on the soft, but obviously we went for the medium, then took the hard to make the one stop work; it looked pretty good on the first stint, but then the Red Bull was just too quick for us and had the better tyre strategy today as well.”
“We’re getting closer to the front, and we will continue to push,” he continued.
“The last couple of races, we’ve taken a big step forward with the car and I hope we will continue like this for the final two.”