Family matters for Hamilton after fifth title

A victorious Lewis Hamilton paid tribute to his father, Anthony, after emulating Juan Manuel Fangio by winning a fifth World Championship on Sunday.

The 33-year-old Mercedes star is now just two championships shy of the Formula One record set by Michael Schumacher, despite stuttering to fourth during a dramatic race in Mexico.

Hamilton spent much of the grand prix at odds with his team as he struggled for pace, and then dramatically ran off the road while defending third position from Red Bull’s Daniel Ricciardo.

But, just as in Mexico City last year, Hamilton, who needed to finish only seventh to be sure of the title, did enough to take the spoils, clinching his fourth championship in five quite remarkable seasons.

Hamilton performed a series of celebratory doughnuts for the 40,000-strong crowd in the former baseball stadium section of this unique Autodromo Hermanos Rodriguez venue, before standing on top of his car to salute them.

Sebastian Vettel, who finished second behind Max Verstappen, sportingly broke away from his post-race interview to embrace Hamilton before the Briton lauded his father, who worked four jobs to set his son on the path to greatness.

Anthony acted as his son’s manager before their acrimonious split in 2010.

“To my family back home, I love you,” Hamilton said. “I wouldn’t be here if it wasn’t for all the hard work that my father did, and my family. It is a very humbling experience.

“I have been at Mercedes since I was 13 so to complete this, and Fangio won two championships with Mercedes, is an incredible feeling. It feels very, very surreal at the moment.”

After a strong start from Hamilton, leap-frogging Ricciardo to slot in behind Verstappen for second, his race soon began to unravel.

After seeing Vettel soar past him for second, before losing 12 seconds in just six laps to the German, he soon had Ricciardo to deal with.

As they roared down to Turn 1, Hamilton locked up his front-left tyre, and in a plume of white smoke, ran on to the grass. The 110,000 spectators groaned and roared in equal measure.

Hamilton gingerly made his way back on to the circuit. “These tyres are dead,” he yelled. His crew ran into the pits, and Hamilton stopped for a second time. He would re-join in fifth.

From there, Hamilton made sure he got his car over the line, and was promoted one place after Ricciardo’s engine blew up with 10 laps remaining.

“It was a horrible race,” Hamilton added. “I had a great start, and I was really working my way up, and then I really don’t know what happened after that.

“We were struggling, so I just tried to hold on and bring the car home.

“Bono (race engineer Pete Bonnington) said on the radio that the title wasn’t won here, but a lot of hard work over a lot of races.”

For the second year in succession, Vettel has watched Hamilton sew up the title with two rounds to spare.

“He drove superbly all year, and he was the better one of us two,” the 31-year-old German, whose challenge has been littered with mistakes, said.

“Number five is something incredible so I told him to enjoy it, and keep pushing as I need him to be at his best for us to keep fighting again next year.”

Reflecting on missing out on the title, he added: “It is a horrible moment.

“Three times in my life I have had that disappointment when you realise you can’t win the championship anymore and they are not happy days.

“We reflect on not one moment, but the whole of the year. We had our chances, but in the end we were not good enough.”