F1 pundit's early race pace simulation predicts a close battle between Red Bull, Mercedes and McLaren at the 2023 F1 Mexican GP

F1 pundit Albert Fabrega has predicted that Red Bull might once again be challenged by Mercedes, McLaren and Ferrari at the 2023 Mexican GP this weekend.

The former champions helmed by Lewis Hamilton came very close to getting their first win of the season at the COTA track in Austin, Texas last Sunday. The seven-time world champion finished just two seconds behind Max Verstappen and displayed an amazing race pace on the track.

The Austrian team might once again find themselves fighting for the win against their rivals in Mexico. Albert Fabrega on his social media revealed that the Mexican GP race pace simulation has shown Mercedes being just a tenth slower than Red Bull on Sunday.

Meanwhile, McLaren and Ferrari are a tenth behind in joint third. Surprisingly, Alpine only have a deficit of 0.4s to the leaders with AlphaTauri following them with a deficit of 0.6s.

Could Mercedes have won in Austin last weekend?

Mercedes Technical Director James Allison mentioned that Hamilton was pretty pacy in the Sprint which gave them confidence heading into the main race on Sunday.

In the team's debrief video, Allison said:

"We should have pitted Lewis, we should have kept ahead and we would have given ourselves a better chance of the win had we done so. But it's good to understand where we were coming from, and also understand a bit more of the strategists' dilemma. We knew that we had been pretty pacy during the Sprint race the day before, but we also knew that Max just had the edge on us."

"Austin being the sort of track where generally speaking the track sort of tends to deal out the cars in pace order by the time the chequered flag falls at the end of Sunday, so we didn't actually think we were in exactly the same race as Max."

"We definitely would have been better to cover him off because actually, the raw pace of the car was good enough to compete on equal terms with him and if we had just done a two-stopper against his two-stopper, it could have been a different race," he added.

It will be fascinating to see if Mercedes learned from their mistakes from the US GP if they find themselves in a similar position in Mexico, where they have an opportunity to take the race win from the hands of Red Bull.