Hamilton aware he cannot afford Monaco repeat
Lewis Hamilton is well aware that another weekend such as he had in Monte Carlo, where not only did the Ferraris run away and hide but he could only muster seventh place in his Mercedes, will probably put his world championship aspirations into intensive care, if not yet on life support.
The former title favourite put a brave face on things, buzzed that he had driven the wheels off what he described as “not a happy car,” and said: “I look at the glass as half full. I am actually really happy with today, I don't know what it is. I came here, started 13th, and it could have been a lot worse. I could have
been in a crash, damaged the car, blown the engine, and come away with no points.
“I was devastated yesterday, but to come away with some points I feel is better than nothing. I managed it nicely and as professionally as I could. I feel happy with how I utilised the time that I had - considering you can't overtake here. I gave it a couple of stabs towards the end, but I had to balance that against the points I could score. I got those points, and I would like to think that at the end of the season they are going to be valuable.
“Of course I can't afford another weekend like this, where the Ferraris are quick. But just because you can't afford something doesn’t mean it’s not going to happen. There is no point dwelling on the fact that you cannot afford it. You just work towards trying to rectify whatever issues you have and hope that you don't come across them again.
“It’s not like we came here unprepared. The car was in a really different place than we had had it before, and that was unexpected for the engineers. They corrected it, and it was worse. Then we went back to this unknown scenario that we are in, where it happens to be okay on one car and not really great on mine.”
Ferrari’s SF70H seems to work everywhere. Hamilton likened it to the Mercedes he had in 2016.
“The Ferrari seems to work everywhere. The next 14 races are going to be very, very difficult. They have had arguably the strongest car all year. Our car is not working at every single place we go to. But the more races we do, the more we learn and the stronger we get. We know the Ferraris are not bulletproof. They have got things coming up, with the turbos they have used, or potentially not used, so we’ll see.”
It was notable that Ferrari have effectively nominated race winner Sebastian Vettel as their number one, which means that all things being equal he’ll be their breadwinner and can thus garner all the points that are going. But Hamilton says he isn’t even thinking of asking Mercedes to make the same stipulation for him, at team-mate Valtteri Bottas’ expense. The very idea seems to offend him.
“They are pushing everything to make sure Sebastian will maximise all of his weekends. It is very hard for the leading car on track to get jumped by the second car unless the team decide to favour the other car, so that is very clear.
“I haven't spoken to our team, and don't plan to. Valtteri has been doing a great job and I don’t feel like we have to favour one over the other. We have to work collectively as a team more than ever before to beat the Ferraris in the constructors’ championship. Who knows what is going to happen? We have just got to make sure we are ahead of them so we are not in the same scenario that we are today.”
One of Mercedes’ prime targets must be to improve their understanding of their car and do a better job of getting the Pirelli tyres to operate more effectively within their temperature window.
“We are under no illusion that we are not perfect and that we still have got areas to improve on,” Hamilton continued. “I still believe we can win this thing. Twenty-five points is a long way away. It is hard just to get to six points and be within firing range. But bit-by-bit we will try and chip away at it.
“Montreal has been a great hunting ground for me in the past and I plan for it to continue, so we are going to work very hard over the next two weeks to try and make sure the car is in the place to make sure we are ahead of those Ferraris. Trust me I will be pushing and the guys will be pushing to fully understand it because we don’t want to be in this position again. One more race like this, and we will be much further behind.”