A CALM and collected Lewis Hamilton remains confident he is on track for a sixth world title this year but admits it will not be as easy as it had appeared earlier this year.
The Mercedes AMG PETRONAS driver had been in strong form, winning eight out of the first 12 races this season but the momentum appears to be losing steam with a resurgent Ferrari taking the last three races through Charles Leclerc (Italy, Belgium) and Sebastian Vettel winning in Singapore on Sunday.
Hamilton still has a comfortable lead atop the standings with 296 points, 65 points more than second placed teammate Valtteri Bottas, but with six more races left, both Leclerc (200) and Vettel (194) are still in with a shot at the title.
“Honestly, I have been really happy with the season we have had so far. We have eight wins now but the ninth has been taking forever to come,” said Hamilton in Kuala Lumpur yesterday.
“Ferrari have (now) put together a serious fight and I don’t know what they have done over the past few months or weeks.
“They were on course to win the first and second race of this year so they clearly had a good package but maybe it had not been optimised (then).
“As a racing driver it is always easier to chase a position, if you are in first you have to keep reinventing and constantly innovate to stay ahead of everyone, which is much, much harder to do.
“Naturally we have been working really hard towards it (sixth world title) and I am always driven to succeed. There is never a moment in the year when I have doubts (of winning).
“We are never allowed to have doubt because it is just like a parachute (dragging) behind us.”
The Russian Grand Prix will be important for Hamilton to reassert his authority on the championship but how he approaches the long straights of the Sochi street track remains to be seen.
The Briton had a disappointing race in Singapore where he finished off the podium in fourth, which he blamed on his pit stop strategy. The timing of pit stops is said to play an important role on the narrow street track in Singapore where overtaking opportunities are limited.
“Right now the team will, as always, be regrouping, heads down, trying to understand what we did wrong during the weekend, what we could have done better and whether we could have won,” added Hamilton.
“I’ll get to speak to my engineer Bono (Pete Bonnington) when I reach Russia (today) and I’ll be at the track on Thursday.
“It’s hard to know what our approach is going to be at the next races because there will be a lot of long straights. I don’t know if it is going to be maximum downforce or low downforce (setup) so we don’t lose out on the straights.
“So far we have had really strong race pace but the qualifying position will also be key as at a lot of these places you can’t really overtake, like at the last race (Singapore).”
After Russia, the championships will head to the Japanese GP on Oct 11-13 followed by the Mexico GP on Oct 25-27.