Generous Vettel hopes his rival stays strong for future tussles
longer, but it was not to be.”
Reflecting on his season Hamilton added: “It has been the toughest year physically, mentally and personally with everything I’m committed to, but I have amazing support.
“Mercedes and my team have just been the most incredible unit and worked to raise the bar. In my mind it is just another day of fighting and I have more races to win, it is not over. In my mind I have to work, go to the debrief and try to win in Brazil.”
Hamilton, who started third on the grid, struggled with chronic tyre-wear after making a strong start in his Mercedes and settled for a cautious cruise to the title without a podium finish. Verstappen, upstaged by his Red Bull teammate Daniel Ricciardo in qualifying on Saturday, came home 17.108 seconds ahead of Vettel after the luckless Australian pole-sitter retired with nine laps remaining. MEXICO CITY: Ferrari’s Sebastian Vettel was generous in defeat on Sunday, congratulating Mercedes rival Lewis Hamilton on securing a fifth Formula One championship and looking forward to continuing their battle next season.
The two embraced after the Briton secured the title at the Mexican Grand Prix, with the German later visiting the Mercedes engineers also to recognise the team’s achievement.
“I congratulated him, I think he drove superbly all year and was the better one of us two,” said Vettel, who finished second in Mexico behind Red Bull’s Max Verstappen.
“I told him well deserved and to enjoy it -- number five is something incredible. Mainly I congratulated him and asked him to keep pushing for next year, I need him at his best to fight him again.”
FOURTH-PLACE FINISH
Hamilton finished fourth in a race that Vettel had to win to have any lingering hope of denying the Mercedes driver a second successive coronation at the Hermanos Rodriguez circuit.
The outcome had been almost a foregone conclusion, however, with Hamilton winning nine races to the German’s five so far and enjoying a run of success after the August break to go 70 points clear while Ferrari made mistakes. Vettel said it had still been a “horrible moment” to realise the championship was definitively lost. “I’ve had three times now in my life that sort of disappointment, where you realise that you can’t win the championship any more and those are not happy days,” he said.
“You reflect not on one moment but the whole year: the work that goes in, the effort that goes in from the end of the last year until now and yes, I think we had our chances. We used most of them, some we did not. But in the end we were not good enough.” of 19 wins in 2014 has been Hamilton’s best season. Schumacher had won 13 of 18 races in 2004. This season Hamilton has 9 wins from 19 outings.
times Hamilton has topped qualifying, compared to Schumacher’s 68. That equates to 36% of his entries, miles ahead of Schumacher’s 22%.
is Hamilton’s win record. That means the Briton averages one victory every 3.19 starts. Schumacher topped the podium once every 3.38 GP.
Grands Prix wins by Hamilton. Schumi has 91.