'Neither of us are silly' says Hamilton as he bests Russell in Mercedes' Mexico City intra-team battle

Lewis Hamilton says he enjoyed a “fun” battle with Mercedes team-mate George Russell, after beating the sister car to fourth place at the Mexico City Grand Prix.

Russell and Hamilton started fifth and sixth respectively but swapped places on the opening lap, before Russell re-gained the initiative on Lap 14.

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The pair each gained a position through the pit stop phase, with Max Verstappen losing ground by serving a 20-second penalty, and Hamilton then closed in on Russell.

Hamilton shadowed Russell before eventually making the move stick into Turn 1 on Lap 65, climbing up into fourth position.

“It was fun, I had fun today,” Hamilton said. “I had a good start, I had a really bad first stint, took too much front wing out of the car, I had massive, massive understeer.

“After my stop, I was able to rectify it, and then after that I had a much better pace, and I was able to push and keep going, and we stopped a little bit early as well, compared to what I had planned and stuff. We got good points.”

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Hamilton also added that he had no doubts that the Mercedes pair would be able to race cleanly for position in their prolonged battle.

“It’s pretty straightforward, I don't think either of us are silly,” Hamilton said. “George is really smart, and is fair, and he's just really good at where he places his car, and I think for me too.

"So when [the team] comes on the radio and says, keep it clean, it's like, ‘of course.’ It's not really different to when you're fighting anyone else, except for it is your team mate, so you have to be double careful because you both want to finish.”

Russell ensured Mercedes claimed a double top-five finish, while also gathering useful data on its split car specifications, with only Hamilton having run the updated components in Mexico City.

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Russell nonetheless had an unusual hindrance during the race after sustaining front wing damage early in the second stint.

“I mean the pace looked pretty strong in the first stint but when I came out the pits behind [Oscar] Piastri I pulled out down the straight and my front left flap just completely collapsed,” Russell said. “I hit this bump so that probably cost me a good three or four tenths for the remainder of the race, so that was tricky to hold on for 40 laps. P5, probably would have taken that after Friday.”