Evening Telegraph (First Edition)
ROUND-UP Hamilton feels chance may be slipping away
LEWIS Hamilton has admitted his hopes of sealing a fifth world Formula One championship are in grave danger as his winless start to the new season continued.
Hamilton reduced the deficit to leader Sebastian Vettel in their title battle to only nine points after Max Verstappen’s collision with the Ferrari driver during yesterday’s frenetic Chinese Grand Prix.
The race was won by Daniel Ricciardo.
After dominating practice on Friday, Hamilton and his Mercedes car have subsequently been well off the pace at a circuit where they have ruled in recent seasons.
Hamilton could not get his rear tyres to work in the cold conditions in qualifying but there was still no improvement in his form yesterday despite the warmer temperatures.
The 33-year-old Englishman was the hot favourite to beat Vettel to this year’s title.
However, he now believes his once-dominant Mercedes team are behind Ferrari and indeed Red Bull in the pecking order.
“Who knows what season holds.
“If it continues this way it is going to be very tough to win this the championship,” Hamilton said.
“We underperformed i n qualifying and the race was a disaster on my side of the garage.
“I need to try and rectify that and get myself back into a normal performance.
“It has not changed my thinking about the season and my goals are obviously still the same.
“However, it is clear from this weekend that we are not the quickest.
“We are the second or third fastest team at the moment so we have got some improving to do — but that is not impossible.”
Hamilton started fourth on the grid and lost one place off the start line.
He was then sitting in fourth, after moving ahead of Kimi Raikkonen, before Red Bull’s inspired pit-stop call paved the way for Ricciardo to win.
Hamilton, 33, felt he should have been called in for fresh rubber, too.
However, Mercedes, not predicting how fast Ricciardo and Verstappen would be on their new tyres, felt track position would be of greater importance.
And the British driver, who is due in Mercedes’ Brackley factory on Thursday, has now called on his team to raise their game in order to claw their way back into the championship fight.
“I have got to keep constructive pressure on the guys but they’re already pressured,” Hamilton added.
“They want to win just as much as the rest of us and it is about working as a team.
“I’ve got to take it upon myself to try and figure out what has gone wrong and move forward.
“However, of course, it is a joint effort and definitely on my side we have struggled more.
“I feel I was on top of my game.
“I came to this race and prepared exactly the same as always but I was just very uncomfortable in the car.”
The victorious Ricciardo said: “I don’t seem to win boring races.”
It was his first victory since last June’s Azerbaijan Grand Prix.
He added: unexpected.
“It was hectic. I heard the safety car call a turn 14 after the Vettel-Verstappen collision and they said we are going to stop.
“It happened very quickly, but it was a decisive, winning move.
“Sometimes you have just got to lick the stamp and send it.
“I enjoyed it very much.” “That was
day for me but I learned a lot out there — and the crowds were incredible.”
IAN Poulter allowed the chance of a second title in three weeks slip away in Harbour Town as Satoshi Kodaira claimed his first PGA tour win in the RBC Heritage event.
Poulter’s win in the Houston Open earned him a place in the Masters and he held a one-shot lead coming into the final round in South Carolina.
However, he shot his worst round of the event, a 75, to slip to a share of seventh while Kodaira won a three-hole play-off against Si-woo Kim.
LOTTERIES
DUNDEE FC