Toto Wolff has told Lewis Hamilton and George Russell that they need to qualify better if Mercedes are to take the fight to Max Verstappen in the final three races of the season. 

Hamilton cut through the field to claim a second-place finish behind reigning world champion Verstappen in Mexico City and also snatched the additional point for the fastest lap at the very end of the race.

The seven-time world champion was immediately on the gearbox of Carlos Sainz during the early stages and showed the pace to hold off Charles Leclerc after the red flag restart, despite completing the final stint on worn medium compound tyres.

This was the second race in a row in which Hamilton has been the closest challenger to Verstappen after the pair crossed the line just two second apart in Austin last time out, although the Mercedes driver was disqualified from that race due to a technical infringement. 

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However, all is not well for Hamilton this season. Qualifying remains an issue for the 38-year-old, who may have had a shot at challenging Verstappen in both races if he hadn’t been forced to undo poor starting positions during the early stages.

This was acknowledged by his Mercedes boss after the race, who told Sky Sports F1: “The smile on our face is because the car was strong. Once Lewis was in free air, we had so much margin in the medium. The lap times were good and [he got the] fastest lap at the end.

“It’s been a few weekends now where we say we ‘could have’ but didn’t. I think we need to qualify better. Probably with the straight-line speed, we wouldn’t have been so competitive against Max, but who knows, the pace is there.

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“It was a brilliant, brilliant drive from Lewis. We have these oscillations in performance and we don’t really know sometimes if the tyres stick. Just a few degrees of track temperature and you are out of the window.”

This was a significant result for Hamilton, who has finally capitalised on Sergio Perez’s poor results to cut the gap to second place in the Drivers’ Championship.

With Checo out on the opening lap following contact with Charles Leclerc, the gap between the two drivers stands at just 20 points heading into the final three races. 

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