‘I haven‘t peaked and plan to go to another level this year’

Battler Rea’s aiming to Thai up points

LEWIS HAMILTON has warned his rivals he can get even better.

The Brit is aiming to become only the third F1 driver to win the title more than four times.

But the 33-year-old reckons there is still more to come.

On the eve of this year’s opener in Melbourne this weekend, Hamilton said: “I plan to go to another level and that is what I have been working towards. I hope I haven’t reached my peak.

“I am sure there is a peak for a driver’s fitness levels – and when your interest starts to decline, your drive starts to decline.

“I guess that’s when you’re over your peak but I definitely don’t feel I’m at that stage.

“I’m in a good range right now and I need to continue to extract the most I can from it.”

Hamilton took a new dig at longterm rival Nico Rosberg, who claimed earlier this week that the Brit was inconsistent.

The Mercedes man said: “There ® are a lot of people that need to get headlines and I think I proved that wasn’t the case last year.

“My consistency was the reason I won the world championship.”

Sebastian Vettel is another driver bidding for a fifth world title.

But the Ferrari man said: “Mercedes is right and Lewis is right to be the favourite this year. We have reasons to be confident.

“Our car is great, there is stuff to come, so there is plenty to look forward to, but usually around this ®

Confident

point you don’t know where the others are, so that is why it is pointless to come here and say you will blow everybody away.”

Meanwhile, Hamilton has attacked F1 for not doing more to attract drivers from ethnic minority backgrounds.

In an Instagram message the sport’s first and only black driver said: “There’s barely any diversity in F1. Still nothing’s changed in 11 years I’ve been here.

“Kids, people, there’s so many jobs in this sport of which anybody, no matter your ethnicity or background, can make it and fit in.”