Hamilton wants fast start to F1 season

MELBOURNE: Lewis Hamilton will try to lay down a marker in this week’s season-opening Australian Grand Prix as he sets his sights on beating fierce rival Sebastian Vettel to a fifth F1 world title.

Mercedes’s reigning world champion and Ferrari’s Vettel can both join the legendary Juan Manuel Fangio as fivetime world title-holders this year, second only to Michael Schumacher’s seven.

Vettel swept home in last year’s opening race against Hamilton in Melbourne before the British ace went on to land the championship with two races to spare from the German.

Ferrari once again have sizzled in pre-season testing along with Red Bull, pointing to a potential three-team assault on this season’s constructors’ title.

But Hamilton, who is reportedly about to sign a new contract with Mercedes which could earn him up to 40 million (US 55 million) per year, says at 33 he’s motivated to blaze on.

“It doesn’t feel like the start of the final chapter, and I don’t feel as though I am about to embark on my last contract,” Hamilton told reporters.

“I want to arrive in Melbourne fit. I want to hit my target weight. I want to kill it through practice, get pole position and I want to win the race convincingly.

“I don’t know how long this feeling is going to last when I go into a new season, but as long as I am still feeling like this I will keep going.”

Hamilton has won twice in Melbourne, in 2008 and 2015. But Vettel, also chasing his third Australian victory, is in a similarly feisty mood ahead of the new season.