Image by Zak Mauger/LAT
Hamilton doesn’t focus on Vettel errors
Lewis Hamilton insists he doesn’t focus on the mistakes of his rivals despite putting pressure on Sebastian Vettel in the Canadian Grand Prix, instead only focusing on his own driving.
Vettel ran wide when Hamilton was close behind him in a battle for the lead in Montreal and was penalized for the way he rejoined the track, ultimately handing Hamilton victory. The championship leader has seen Vettel make a number of costly mistakes over the past 12 months but says he hasn’t analyzed his own performances compared to the German.
“I don’t know, I don’t really look too much,” Hamilton said. “I don’t compare myself to other people so I don’t look to others or their faults or anything.
“I just look to really try and take a lot of pride in my work and particularly my track record of not making mistakes, which I’ve managed to get myself into a really good place and deliver minimal faults in race weekends and races.
“I had a small hiccup on Friday (in Canada) but was able to pull it back on Saturday and then throughout the weekend, so that’s a real, real focus. 21 races, every single point counts -- even seven points, or three points, it adds up, so I take a lot of pride in that.
“It’s all great being quick, having quick drivers, but if you can be an all-round driver, work well outside the car, but also in the car, you have things that perhaps others are not able to put together, it makes your value go up.”
Hamilton added that he wants to feel like he is outperforming his machinery and fighting for wins even on weekends when Mercedes doesn’t have the quickest car.
“What I can say is the races have been really, really strong, really consistent, and even on weekends where we’ve not had the car to really win, I’ve been able to put it right there with the front-runners. My goal on the race weekend is to do the best job I can for the team but to extract above and beyond.”
Hamilton has won five of the first seven races this season and currently sits 29 points clear of teammate Valtteri Bottas in the drivers’ championship.
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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