LEWIS WON’T LET TITLE SLIP AWAY
Hamilton vows no let-up as Ferrari feel the pace
LEWIS HAMILTON has promised to keep driving harder than ever to claim his fourth world title this season.
The 32-year-old Brit won his third race in four starts at the Italian Grand Prix on Sunday to lead the standings by three points from his crushed Ferrari rival Sebastian Vettel. It is the first time Hamilton has headed the drivers’ table since the same race a year ago, when then Mercedes team-mate Nico Rosberg went on to win the crown before suddenly quitting the sport. Next up is floodlit Singapore on September 17. The tight, bumpy street circuit will suit the Ferraris just as much as Monza helped Hamilton’s Mercedes in the Italian team’s backyard. Hamilton was untouchable at the “Temple of Speed”, setting a new record of 69 pole positions on Saturday, then leading team-mate Valtteri Bottas home by almost five seconds on Sunday with Vettel a massive 36 seconds adrift. But Hamilton’s determined not to let another title slip away, saying: “I still have to apply myself like I have in the last four races. “I was 20 points behind in July and now we’ve changed the picture, so maybe he can feel that way for a while. There is a real solidarity and unity in our team this year.”
There is real fear in the Ferrari camp that Vettel’s drive to the title, which looked certain when the German was 20 points ahead after the Austrian Grand Prix on July 9, is coming off the road.
Sergio Marchionne, the Ferrari president, admitted after Sunday’s race: “I think we screwed up from Spa into here.
“Now we need to go back to the factory and find out which way the car went sideways.”
Glory
In contrast Hamilton is delighted his Mercedes engineers have come up with an answer to every problem that Ferrari have set them. He added: “In hindsight you always say you could have done this or you could have done that. “At Spa there were sections where Ferrari were really killing us, but our guys analysed these and found areas in the set-up where we were not so comfortable. That helped us here.” And he is sure that he can taste glory in Singapore for a third time, having won there for Mercedes in 2014 and McLaren in 2009. He said: “I still expect Ferrari to be better there in the slow and medium-speed corners but I’m going there with the attitude that we will be trying to win.”