Vettel looks forward to future battle

Ferrari’s Sebastian Vettel was generous in defeat on Sunday, congratulating Mercedes rival Lewis Hamilton on securing a fifth Formula One Drivers’ Championship title 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,” Vettel, who finished second in Mexico behind Red Bull’s Max Verstappen, said. “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.”

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.