Hamilton’s title warning
Lewis Hamilton may have built a strong advantage in the 2019 Formula 1 drivers’ standings, but the Mercedes ace has warned that his championship lead “could disappear” following Ferrari’s recent fightback.
The British driver remains favourite to secure a sixth F1 world title after winning eight of the opening 12 races this year. However, he is also without a win since Hungary on 4 August.
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Ferrari have won the three races since the summer break and on Sunday in Singapore Sebastian Vettel and Charles Leclerc claimed a one-two for the Italians. Meanwhile, Hamilton was fourth under the lights at Marina Bay.
With six races remaining this season, Hamilton is 65 points clear of Mercedes team-mate Valtteri Bottas and 96 clear of Leclerc, who is joint-third in the standings with Red Bull’s Max Verstappen.
The 34-year-old Hamilton warned: “I am under no illusion that my gap in the championship could disappear.
“It is not won yet. We need to pull our socks up and get the f*** on basically. We can squeeze more out of this car and individually we can do better. We don’t feel great but I think that is a good thing.
“If anyone in the team feels relaxed right now, they need talking to because we should all be feeling the pain.
“We will go to Russia and try to rev ourselves up and do a better job - but these next few races are going to be tough.”
Time to re-huddle and work hard
After his fourth-placed finish in Singapore, and seeing Ferrari win for the third successive race, Hamilton feels it will now be “very hard” to beat the Italians.
This weekend the teams and drivers head to Russia and Hamilton said: “Clearly their car works really well everywhere now so it’s going to be very hard to beat them.
“Particularly [because] they’re so quick on the straights. We can’t compete with them on the straights at the moment.
“We have won before with not the best car. But it’s just really how we deliver over the weekend. At the moment they’re delivering better on both ends.
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“If we are better in the operations area then I think that we can just pip them. Like [in Singapore] I did enough in the race for the first stint to gave come out in the lead but just the whole process didn’t work as well as should do.
“So we’ve just got to re-huddle and get back together and work hard moving forwards.”
The F1 Russian Grand Prix will be held on Sunday 29 September at the Sochi Autodrom (12.10pm start BST).
The 16th race of the 2019 season will be live on Sky Sports F1. Channel 4 will show highlights.