Lewis Hamilton has no intention of easing up this weekend as he seeks a mere top five finish in the Mexican Grand Prix to clinch his fourth drivers world title and a place among the greatest drivers in Formula One history.
The arguments over his status have grown in volume as the months have passed this year, but they reached a new crescendo this week in the days following his ninth win of the season at last weekend’s United States Grand Prix in Texas.
His Mercedes team chief Toto Wolff declared him to be on course to become “the best driver that has ever existed” while veteran Brazilian Felipe Massa said that he already ranks him alongside Michael Schumacher and Ayrton Senna.
Another title triumph will lift him clear of Jackie Stewart, on three championship wins, as the most successful British driver of all time, drawing him level on four with Alain Prost and his current rival Sebastian Vettel.
Ahead lie only seven-time champion Schumacher and five-time title winner Juan Manuel Fangio. Hamilton, however, has been keen to avoid the hype and says his mind is on winning this Sunday’s race in front of a passionate and raucous crowd at the Autodromo Hermanos Rodriguez.
His caution is understandable as he and Mercedes know that despite the long straights and slow corners, the thin air at an altitude of 2,250-metres will help deliver a contest that may play to the strengths of rival Ferrari.
Mercedes will run with a high down-force set-up, as might be used in Monaco or Budapest, two circuits where it struggled this year, and this is the cause of its concerns. Vettel, despite trailing Hamilton by 66 points and needing a huge shift in form and fortunes, will not abandon his hopes of stopping the Englishman’s immediate triumph.