Lewis Hamilton talks tough on the radio as Valtteri Bottas’ scary crash brings the Mexico City GP to a halt.
The Mexico City GP took a dramatic turn after a huge crash involving Valtteri Bottas. The big smash at Turn 1 caused an immediate red flag, and all the cars had to head to the pit lane.
Lewis Hamilton, already annoyed with his team after an earlier clash with Charles Leclerc, was sending some tense messages over the radio. Hamilton had lost the lead and dropped to third right at the start because Leclerc cut Turn 4, and he wasn’t happy about it.
“Got pushed out by my own teammate,” Hamilton said angrily. Even after Leclerc got a 5-second penalty from the stewards, Hamilton didn’t feel it was enough.
Now stuck in third behind Max Verstappen, Hamilton had to slow down to avoid overheating his car, while Leclerc was far ahead with clear space.
“The problem with the 5-second penalty is he’s got clean air,” Hamilton complained. “He doesn’t have to manage like the rest of us.”
He also mentioned a possible pre-race deal: “The stewards are basically handing Charles this win. We agreed on this in the drivers’ briefing.”
Then on lap 46, after the first round of pit stops, Bottas suffered a serious suspension failure at Turn 1 in his Cadillac and crashed hard into the barriers. At first, the Safety Car was deployed before a red flag.
Hamilton quickly took a pit stop, hoping to gain an advantage with fresh tires over Leclerc and Verstappen. But then the race was stopped to fix the barriers, meaning all drivers could change tires during the red flag too — which made Hamilton even more frustrated.
“We’ve got big problems,” he said angrily on the radio. “Big, big problems.”
The race will now restart from a standing start.
The Cadillac team later issued a statement about Bottas’s crash: “Valtteri has been taken to the Medical Center for further checks as a precaution after the incident on Lap 46. He got out of the car on his own and was responsive on the radio.”
This crash adds to a tough season for Bottas, marked by several reliability issues and being outperformed by his teammate Sergio Perez.
Cadillac is now thinking about potential replacements for Bottas in 2027, including their American test driver Colton Herta and Mercedes’s third driver Frederik Vesti. Meanwhile, they confirmed that Perez has signed a new long-term contract, keeping him with the team until at least 2029.