Mercedes is said to be more powerful in Mexico with an “optimized” F1 engine

The demands of the Autodromo Hermanos Rodriguez, which is over 2000m above sea level, have usually balanced the engine power as the air is 25% less dense than normal.

This has paid off in favor of Mercedes’ rivals in recent years, with Red Bulls Max Verstappen taking victories with Renault engines in 2017 and 2018 and taking pole position with Honda power in 2019 before a field penalty and a collision with Bottas put him out of the fight for victory the last time the event was held.

Bottas recognizes that the Mexican venue was a “weakness” for Mercedes, but believes that the progress on the engine – despite ongoing reliability concerns that have forced him to three engine penalties in the last four races – should be carried over to the team this year to be more competitive.

However, the Finn continues to believe that Red Bull-Honda will be hard to beat.

“For Mexico, we know it was usually a little weakness for us and it feels like a pretty big chunk has come out of the high-altitude aggregate in recent years,” said Bottas.

“But I think we’ve been able to optimize a lot since then, so I would expect us to be better off than in previous years.

“Still, we think on paper that they are really strong places for Red Bull, and we just really tried to collect all the knowledge from the past few years and in this way to prepare ourselves as well as possible.

“It’s not going to be easy weekends, but it’s never easy in this sport.”

Valtteri Bottas, Mercedes AMG W10

Photo by: Joe Portlock / Motorsport Images

Mercedes team boss Toto Wolff believes that Red Bull’s previous success at the Mexican venue is no guarantee that Red Bull will be the favorite for this year’s race given the course of the 2021 season.

Both Mercedes and Red Bull have emerged as the team to beat on tracks that were theoretically better suited to the rival and Wolff expects that to be the case in the next race as well.

“Mexico has traditionally been a difficult track for us but everything can change this season because we’ve seen our strengths are traditional and they are not and vice versa, so I think it’s really race after race,” said Wolff.

Lewis Hamilton starts the last triple header of the season in Mexico, 12 points behind Verstappen, while Mercedes leads the constructors’ championship 23 points ahead of Red Bull.