Lewis Hamilton extended his records for the most pole positions and most podiums at the Mexico City Grand Prix last weekend.

Hamilton took his 105th pole at the Autodromo Hermanos Rodriguez, becoming the first driver to achieve the feat in his 40s since Nigel Mansell in 1994.

While he felt he had the pace to win the Grand Prix – without Ferrari’s counterproductive lap-one battle – he did at least finish P2 for a 209th career podium.

Carlos Sainz wonders how it feels to be a seven-time champion like Lewis Hamilton

Even though success has been hard to come by since the start of 2022, Hamilton is still 32 wins, 55 poles and 71 podiums clear of Max Verstappen, the next-best active driver.

Carlos Sainz, who lost his Ferrari seat to Hamilton, is a four-time Grand Prix winner in his own right with 29 podium finishes.

Asked which F1 driver he would trade places with, he replied: “I don’t know. Honestly, I’m so happy with my life, I don’t want to trade it with anyone. I would like maybe to trade it for one minute with Lewis, just to know how it feels to be a seven-time world champion.

“It must feel amazing. I’ll take Lewis for one minute, feel like a seven-time world champion, then take it away again.”

Hamilton looked like a downgrade on Sainz in his first year at Ferrari as he failed to score a single podium.

Sainz pushed Charles Leclerc hard throughout his time at Maranello, but Hamilton was clearly Ferrari’s second driver in terms of performance.

This season, the dynamic has changed. Hamilton leads Leclerc in the standings with four races to go and is seemingly trying to take control of the team.

Sainz believes Hamilton has been ‘saved’ by the regulation changes, having looked unrecognisable in the latter part of the ground-effect era.

Hamilton’s points-per-race average is still only 9.65, compared to 10.23 for Sainz, albeit in half the number of races (43 vs 88).