Hamilton sets shock target after Mexican 'head flip'

Lewis Hamilton claims he "just wants to see the end" of the Mexico City Grand Prix after qualifying 'flipped' his Mercedes.

Hamilton will line up in sixth place at the Autodromo Hermanos Rodriguez, having been out-qualified by team-mate George Russell who is running an older specification Mercedes after his Austin crash. 

A promising FP3 session fizzled out as the Ferrari pair of Carlos Sainz and Charles Leclerc and title rivals Max Verstappen and Lando Norris also out-qualified the seven-time champion, who suffered an uncharacteristic spin in the US last time out. 

Looking ahead to the 71-lap race, Hamilton hinted that he hoped to see the end of the race after yet more Mercedes car problems.

"I just want to go to the end of the race this time," he told media including RacingNews365. 

"We just have three-wheeling and the ride height is moving 15 millimetres up and down and when it does that, [it is tough].

"When we got to qualifying, I had no rear and it was like it flipped on its head, it was very strange, but it will be interesting to get a reading on the car, as I'm on the upgrade, so it should be quicker."

"We definitely took a good step in FP3, I thought we had some balance, but we were still six-tenths off the fastest car, so the bigger wing was to get more downforce."

Hamilton's set-up woes

The two-time Mexico winner also added that the only change to his W15 was a minor rear-wing tweak heading into qualifying, but that he was unable to make wider set-up changes.

"FP3 felt decent, it felt like we were on the right track, so I decided not to make any changes [going into qualifying]," he added.

"All we did was put more rear-wing on, and I was like: 'Okay, let's leave it there.'

"There was not really a lot we could do in development with the set-up changes to progress the car forwards, the performance is where it is."