Title rivals Lewis Hamilton and Max Verstappen say they will race fair and clean for the remainder of the season.

“I always want to win it in the right way and if you’re going to lose it, you lose it in the right way also,” Hamilton said.

Verstappen said: “I will race hard like Lewis does and everyone else does and of course always try to keep it clean.”

Red Bull are favourites to secure another victory for Verstappen at the Autodromo Hermanos Rodriguez.

Hamilton said he would never resort to underhand tactics, which have been used before by some drivers in title fights, most notably in the controversial situations involving Ayrton Senna and Alain Prost in 1989 and 1990 and with Michael Schumacher in 1994 and 1997.

“We have have never won a championship that way, I have never won a championship in that way and would never want to,” Hamilton said. “I am here to win in the right way, and that’s through sheer skill and determination and hard work.”

Verstappen said he did not believe what had happened in the past had relevance today.

“I don’t think about previous historic fights between two drivers, what they have done,” he said.

“It is the past. I just focus on what I have to do on track and that is to try to do the best I can.

“And that is how you are going to win the championship, to try to get the most available points out there and of course to try to beat your rival.”

What might happen in Mexico

Hamilton said he expected Red Bull to be “rapid” this weekend.

The track is the highest on the Formula 1 calendar, at 2,200m, and this favours Red Bull and their Honda engine over Mercedes for a variety of complex technical reasons.

Hamilton won the last race held in Mexico in 2019 – the event was cancelled last year because of the pandemic – but only after Verstappen received a grid penalty that relegated him from pole position.

Hamilton said: “We did win last time but that was only because Max made a mistake and got a penalty. Otherwise, they were much quicker than us. So we expect that will be very similar his weekend.”

Hamilton was dealt a blow at the last race, the US Grand Prix in Austin, Texas, when Verstappen and Red Bull showed greater performance, despite it being on a track on which Mercedes have historically been strong.

“We thought we would be stronger in somewhere like Austin,” Hamilton said. “They were quite a bit stronger than us in the race there. I really can’t predict it.

“They are going to be rapid this weekend. Last year, they were nearly half a second ahead of us. Our car is not better than last year’s car with those changes so it will be interesting to see how we compare with them this weekend.”

Verstappen said: “It’s all about details. We have to be on it and make sure we go in the right direction with the car.”

Why are Red Bull expected to be faster?

The altitude at Mexico City favours Red Bull for two key reasons.

The first is to do with their engine. The design of the Honda compared to the Mercedes means the Japanese company is better able to compensate for the lack of oxygen in the atmosphere than Mercedes.

On the car side, Mexico demands maximum aerodynamic downforce because of the thin air, and the Red Bull can produce more grip than the Mercedes on that setting because of the different philosophies by which the two cars operate.

Hamilton said: “What I do know is last year they out-qualified us here and they were down on power compared to us through the year.

“Now they are ahead on power, there or thereabouts, and now that they have a very strong car that has been affected less by the changes in rules [over last winter] that we were affected by.

“The fact is we haven’t brought an upgrade [to the Mercedes car] for a long time, since Silverstone [in July], and we know that they were bringing upgrades well past that.

“They generally have a little bit extra performance on the rear end of their car. It seems like in the hotter places they seem to be doing a little bit better than us and this has just been a track where they have been very strong.

“But it doesn’t mean we can’t be strong this weekend. We’ll find out when we get out there.

“But it means we have to extract everything and push absolutely to the limit and try to leave no stone unturned. We are just trying to make sure we cover every area possible.”