Image by Steve Etherington/LAT
Hamilton proud to be making fewer mistakes than Vettel
Lewis Hamilton is taking pride from the fact he has not made as many errors as title rival Sebastian Vettel in recent races after extending his championship lead with victory in the Singapore Grand Prix.
Ferrari looked strong throughout practice in Singapore, but Vettel hit the wall in FP2 and missed out on his long run after damaging his car (pictured below). Hamilton then pulled out an impressive performance to take pole position and dictate the race from the front, while Vettel could only finish third as the championship gap grew to 40 points.
https://twitter.com/F1/status/1040674542774087680
The mistake in Singapore followed a spin for Vettel at the start in Monza as well as the German crashing out of the lead of his home grand prix, with Hamilton winning on each occasion.
“I don’t see look at it and think that we’ve lucked in,” Hamilton said. “When Vettel hit the wall the other day, damaged the car and lost running on track, that’s not us lucking in, that’s ultimately them not doing (the best job).
“I take a lot of pride in making sure I don’t put myself in those positions and I know the team is relying on me as the team is relying on him. There’s a lot of pressure on us drivers. It’s only small percentages and you get it wrong and there’s big ramifications.
“As a team we honestly don’t spend any time wasted wondering what they are doing, or if they are feeling pressure or happy or whatever, we honestly focus on us. There’s nothing we can do about them, all we can do is be the best we can and hopefully that’s good enough -- and if it’s not we will continue working and hopefully get it.”
Hamilton only needs one more victory this season to be able to finish every other race second to Vettel and still win the title, but the defending champion is preparing himself for a response from Ferrari.
Hamilton leads Vettel in Singapore. (Image by Zak Mauger/LAT)
“There’s still a lot of points available. As an athlete and as a team and competitors you have to stay positive, Hope and belief are the two things that you always need to make sure you have with you and when the going gets tough, that’s what sport and competition is about.
“I’m sure they will go away from this weekend as a difficult weekend and will come back strong fighting in the next one, but I can assure you as a team we will we’re not shipping out. We are not cocky or over-confident, we are being diligent and working as hard as we can.
“We want to keep hammering away as we are. If they have an answer to that we don’t mind that, we want that battle -- and if they don’t we also don’t mind that.”
Presented by:
Chris Medland
While studying Sports Journalism at the University of Central Lancashire, Chris managed to talk his way into working at the British Grand Prix in 2008 and was retained for three years before joining ESPN F1 as Assistant Editor. After three further years at ESPN, a spell as F1 Editor at Crash Media Group was followed by the major task of launching F1i.com’s English-language website and running it as Editor. Present at every race since the start of 2014, he has continued building his freelance portfolio, working with international titles. As well as writing for RACER, his broadcast work includes television appearances on F1 TV and as a presenter and reporter on North America's live radio coverage on SiriusXM.
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